Individual Differences in Peripheral Physiology and Implications for the Real-Time Assessment of Driver State (Phase I & II)

Cognitively oriented in-vehicle activities (cell-phone calls, speech interfaces, audio translations of text messages, etc.) increasingly place non-visual demands on a driver’s attention. While a driver’s eyes may remain oriented towards the road, attention may be diverted elsewhere, resulting in decreased situational awareness, inattentional blindness, or situations of “look-but-fail-to-see” (Kass, Kerstan, & Stanny, 2007; Recarte & Nunes, 2003; Strayer, Drews, & Johnston, 2003). Physiological measures have long been established to change with escalating workload in aviation environments (Backs & Seljos, 1994; Veltman & Gaillard, 1998). At the onset of this project, the degree to which different physiological measures are sensitive to changes in driver workload had yet to be fully established. Mehler, Reimer, Coughlin and Dusek (2009) presents results from a simulation study that assessed the sensitivity of multiple physiological measures to changes in cognitive demand through the delayed digit recall (n-back) task. While mixed results on the sensitivity of particular physiological measures such as heart rate and skin conductance appeared in the literature (see Mehler, Reimer & Coughlin, 2012 for a comprehensive review), a series of simulation and field studies completed as part of these projects clearly demonstrates the reliability of heart rate and skin conductance as measures of driver workload and illustrate the important relationships between these measures to quantify an individual’s overall level of demand. In particular, the results presented in Mehler, Reimer and Coughlin (2012) highlight the consistency of response patterns across healthy participants in their 20’s, 40’s and 60’s. In addition to establishing the sensitivity of these measures to change in driver demand, Reimer and Mehler (2011) illustrates the highly consistent patterning of heart rate to changes in demand across simulation and field studies. While basic fixed based driving simulation does not provide the same level of cognitive demand that exists as part of real world driving (e.g. lower overall heart rate), this research demonstrated pattern of changes in heart rate from a period of single task driving to a period where the driver is engaged in a cognitive secondary task is almost identical to what would be observed if the driver was on a real road.

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• Record URL:
  • https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/26592
• Supplemental Notes:
  • This document is disseminated under the sponsorship of the Department of Transportation, University Transportation Centers Program.
• Corporate Authors:

  New England University Transportation Center

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  77 Massachusetts Avenue, Room 40-279
  Cambridge, MA  United States  01239

  Research and Innovative Technology Administration

  University Transportation Centers Program
  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Authors:
  • Reimer, Bryan
• Publication Date: 2013

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Edition: Final Report
• Features: References;
• Pagination: 3p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Attention; Cognition; Distraction; Drivers; Measurement; Physiology; Real time information; Simulation
• Uncontrolled Terms: Driver workload
• Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors; I83: Accidents and the Human Factor;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01501340
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: MITR22-7
• Files: UTC, NTL, TRIS, RITA, ATRI, USDOT
• Created Date: Dec 16 2013 2:07PM