A decrease in brain activation associated with driving when listening to someone speak

Neuroanatomical correlates of distracted straight driving performance: a driving simulator MRI study across the lifespan

Background

Driving is the preferred mode of transportation for adults across the healthy age span. However, motor vehicle crashes are among the leading causes of injury and death, especially for older adults, and under distracted driving conditions. Understanding the neuroanatomical basis of driving may inform interventions that minimize crashes. This exploratory study examined the neuroanatomical correlates of undistracted and distracted simulated straight driving.

Methods

One-hundred-and-thirty-eight participants (40.6% female) aged 17-85 years old (mean and SD = 58.1 ± 19.9 years) performed a simulated driving task involving straight driving and turns at intersections in a city environment using a steering wheel and foot pedals. During some straight driving segments, participants responded to auditory questions to simulate distracted driving. Anatomical T1-weighted MRI was used to quantify grey matter volume and cortical thickness for five brain regions: the middle frontal gyrus (MFG), precentral gyrus (PG), superior temporal cortex (STC), posterior parietal cortex (PPC), and cerebellum. Partial correlations controlling for age and sex were used to explore relationships between neuroanatomical measures and straight driving behavior, including speed, acceleration, lane position, heading angle, and time speeding or off-center. Effects of interest were noted at an unadjusted p-value threshold of 0.05.

Results

Distracted driving was associated with changes in most measures of straight driving performance. Greater volume and cortical thickness in the PPC and cerebellum were associated with reduced variability in lane position and heading angle during distracted straight driving. Cortical thickness of the MFG, PG, PPC, and STC were associated with speed and acceleration, often in an age-dependent manner.

Conclusion

Posterior regions were correlated with lane maintenance whereas anterior and posterior regions were correlated with speed and acceleration, especially during distracted driving. The regions involved and their role in straight driving may change with age, particularly during distracted driving as observed in older adults. Further studies should investigate the relationship between distracted driving and the aging brain to inform driving interventions.

Behind the wheel: exploring gray matter variations in experienced drivers

Background

Driving is a complex skill involving various cognitive activities. Previous research has explored differences in the brain structures related to the navigational abilities of drivers compared to non-drivers. However, it remains unclear whether changes occur in the structures associated with low-level sensory and higher-order cognitive abilities in drivers.

Methods

Gray matter volume, assessed via voxel-based morphometry analysis of T1-weighted images, is considered a reliable indicator of structural changes in the brain. This study employs voxel-based morphological analysis to investigate structural differences between drivers (n = 22) and non-drivers (n = 20).

Results

The results indicate that, in comparison to non-drivers, drivers exhibit significantly reduced gray matter volume in the middle occipital gyrus, middle temporal gyrus, supramarginal gyrus, and cerebellum, suggesting a relationship with driving-related experience. Furthermore, the volume of the middle occipital gyrus, and middle temporal gyrus, is found to be marginally negative related to the years of driving experience, suggesting a potential impact of driving experience on gray matter volume. However, no significant correlations were observed between driving experiences and frontal gray matter volume.

Conclusion

These findings suggest that driving skills and experience have a pronounced impact on the cortical areas responsible for low-level sensory and motor processing. Meanwhile, the influence on cortical areas associated with higher-order cognitive function appears to be minimal.

Individual differences, ADHD diagnosis, and driving performance: effects of traffic density and distraction type

The present study examined the impact of individual differences, attention, and memory deficits on distracted driving. Drivers with ADHD are more susceptible to distraction which results in more frequent collisions, violations, and licence suspensions. Consequently, the present investigation had 36 participants complete preliminary questionnaires, memory tasks, workload indices, and four, 4-min simulated driving scenarios to evaluate such impact. It was hypothesised ADHD diagnosis, type of cellular distraction, and traffic density would each differentially and substantively impact driving performance. Results indicated traffic density and distraction type significantly affected the objective driving facets measured, as well as subjective and secondary task performance. ADHD diagnosis directly impacted secondary task performance. Results further showed significant interactions between distraction type and traffic density on both brake pressure and steering wheel angle negatively impacting lateral and horizontal vehicle control. Altogether, these findings provide substantial empirical evidence for the deleterious effect of cellphone use on driving performance.Practitioner summary: This study examined how ADHD diagnosis, traffic density, and distraction type affect driver behaviour. Participants completed driving behaviour questionnaires, memory tasks, workload indices, and driving scenarios. Results showed that ADHD diagnosis impacted secondary task performance, while traffic and distractions significantly impacted driving performance as well secondary task performance and workload.

Disturbance of information in superior parietal lobe during dual-task interference in a simulated driving task

Performing a secondary task while driving causes a decline in driving performance. This phenomenon, called dual-task interference, can have lethal consequences. Previous fMRI studies have looked at the changes in the average brain activity to uncover the neural correlates of dual-task interference. From these results, it is unclear whether the overall modulations in brain activity result from general effects such as task difficulty, attentional modulations, and mental effort or whether it is caused by a change in the responses specific to each condition due to dual-task interference. To overcome this limitation, here, we used multi-voxel pattern analysis (MVPA) to interrogate the change in the information content in multiple brain regions during dual-task interference in simulated driving. Participants performed a lane-change task in a simulated driving environment, along with a tone discrimination task with either short or long onset time difference (Stimulus Onset Asynchrony, SOA) between the two tasks. Behavioral results indicated a robust dual-task effect on lane-change reaction time (RT). MVPA revealed regions that carry information about the driving lane-change direction (shift right/shift left), including the superior parietal lobe (SPL), visual, and motor regions. Comparison of decoding accuracies across SOA conditions in the SPL region revealed lower accuracy in the short compared to the long SOA condition. This change in accuracy was not observed in the visual and motor regions. These findings suggest that the dual-task interference in driving may be related to the disturbance of information processing in the SPL region.

Persistent effects of mobile phone conversation while driving after disconnect: Physiological evidence and driving performance

Cognitive workload has been known as a key factor in traffic accidents, which can be highly increased by talking on the phone while driving. A wide range of studies around the world investigated the effects of mobile phone conversations on driving performance and traffic accidents. But less noticed is the durability of cognitive effects of mobile phone conversations. This study aimed to determine the effects of different types of mobile phone conversations on physiological response and driving performance during and after the conversation. Heart rate, heart rate variability (physiological response), Standard deviation of lane position (SDLP), and the relative distance between two cars (driving performance) of 34 samples (male and female) in the driving simulator were recorded. In this study, three types of conversations (neutral, cognitive, and arousal) were used. Neutral conversation did not pursue specific purpose questions. Cognitive conversations were simple mathematical problem-solving questions and arousal conversations aimed at arousing participant emotions. Each conversation was used as a secondary task in a condition. The study had three conditions; in each condition the participant drove for 15 min. Each condition consisted of 5 min of driving (Background), 5 min of driving and conversation (dual tasks) and 5 min of driving after conversation to trace the effects of the conversation. Vehicle speed was 110 km/h in each of the three conditions using car-following scenario. The results showed that neutral conversations had no significant effects on physiological response. Though, arousal conversations had significant effects on physiological responsiveness and driving performance during conversations, where it was even more significant after disconnection. Therefore, the content of the conversation determines the amount of cognitive load imposed on the driver. Considering the persistence of cognitive effects caused by conversation, the risk of traffic accidents is still high even after disconnection.

Distraction "Hangover": Characterization of the Delayed Return to Baseline Driving Risk After Distracting Behaviors

OBJECTIVE

We measured how long distraction by a smartphone affects simulated driving behaviors after the tasks are completed (i.e., the distraction hangover).

BACKGROUND

Most drivers know that smartphones distract. Trying to limit distraction, drivers can use hands-free devices, where they only briefly glance at the smartphone. However, the cognitive cost of switching tasks from driving to communicating and back to driving adds an underappreciated, potentially long period to the total distraction time.

METHOD

Ninety-seven 21- to 78-year-old individuals who self-identified as active drivers and smartphone users engaged in a simulated driving scenario that included smartphone distractions. Peripheral-cue and car-following tasks were used to assess driving behavior, along with synchronized eye tracking.

RESULTS

The participants' lateral speed was larger than baseline for 15 s after the end of a voice distraction and for up to 25 s after a text distraction. Correct identification of peripheral cues dropped about 5% per decade of age, and participants from the 71+ age group missed seeing about 50% of peripheral cues within 4 s of the distraction. During distraction, coherence with the lead car in a following task dropped from 0.54 to 0.045, and seven participants rear-ended the lead car. Breadth of scanning contracted by 50% after distraction.

CONCLUSION

Simulated driving performance drops dramatically after smartphone distraction for all ages and for both voice and texting.

APPLICATION

Public education should include the dangers of any smartphone use during driving, including hands-free.

Emergency Braking Evoked Brain Activities during Distracted Driving

Electroencephalogram (EEG) was used to analyze the mechanisms and differences in brain neural activity of drivers in visual, auditory, and cognitive distracted vs. normal driving emergency braking conditions. A pedestrian intrusion emergency braking stimulus module and three distraction subtasks were designed in a simulated experiment, and 30 subjects participated in the study. The common activated brain regions during emergency braking in different distracted driving states included the inferior temporal gyrus, associated with visual information processing and attention; the left dorsolateral superior frontal gyrus, related to cognitive decision-making; and the postcentral gyrus, supplementary motor area, and paracentral lobule associated with motor control and coordination. When performing emergency braking under different driving distraction states, the brain regions were activated in accordance with the need to process the specific distraction task. Furthermore, the extent and degree of activation of cognitive function-related prefrontal regions increased accordingly with the increasing task complexity. All distractions caused a lag in emergency braking reaction time, with 107.22, 67.15, and 126.38 ms for visual, auditory, and cognitive distractions, respectively. Auditory distraction had the least effect and cognitive distraction the greatest effect on the lag.

The "Effort Elephant" in the Room: What Is Effort, Anyway?

Despite decades of research in the fields of judgment and decision-making, social psychology, cognitive psychology, human-machine interaction, behavioral economics, and neuroscience, we still do not know what "cognitive effort" is. The definitions in use are often imprecise and sometimes diametrically opposed. Researchers with different assumptions talk past each other, and many aspects of effort conservation remain untested and difficult to measure. In this article, we explain why effort is so difficult to pin down and why it is important that researchers develop consensus on precise definitions. Next, we describe major "hidden" sources of miscommunication: areas in which researchers disagree in their underlying assumptions about the nature of effort without realizing it. We briefly review a number of methods used to both measure and manipulate the effortfulness of thinking and highlight why they often produce contradictory findings. We conclude by reviewing existing perspectives on cognitive effort and integrating them to suggest a common framework for communicating about effort as a limited cognitive resource.

Mental arithmetic modulates temporal variabilities of finger-tapping tasks in a tempo-dependent manner

Background

Several psychiatric diseases impair temporal processing. Temporal processing is thought to be based on two domains: supra-second intervals and sub-second intervals. Studies show that temporal processing in sub-second intervals is mainly an automated process. However, the brain functions involved in temporal processing at each time scale remain unclear. We hypothesized that temporal processing in supra-second intervals requires several brain areas, such as the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, intraparietal sulcus (IPS), and inferior parietal lobe, corresponding to various cognitions in a time scale-dependent manner. We focused on a dual-task paradigm (DTP) involving simultaneous performance of cognitive and motor tasks, which is an effective method for screening psychomotor functions; we then designed a DTP comprising finger tapping at various tempi as the temporal processing task and two cognitive tasks (mental arithmetic and reading) that might affect temporal processing. We hoped to determine whether task-dependent interferences on temporal processing in supra-second intervals differed depending on the cognitive tasks involved.

Methods

The study included 30 participants with no history of neuromuscular disorders. Participants were asked to perform a DTP involving right index finger tapping at varying tempi (0.33, 0.5, 1, 2, 3, and 4 s inter-tapping intervals). Cognitive tasks comprised mental arithmetic (MA) involving three-digit addition, mental reading (MR) of three- to four-digit numbers, and a control (CTL) task without any cognitive loading. For comparison between tasks, we calculated the SDs of the inter-tapping intervals. Participants' MA abilities in the three-digit addition task were evaluated.

Results

The MA and MR tasks significantly increased the SDs of the inter-tapping intervals compared to those of the CTL task in 2-3 s and 3-4 s for the MA and MR tasks, respectively. Furthermore, SD peaks in the finger-tapping tasks involving MA were normalized by those in the CTL task, which were moderately correlated with the participants' MA ability (r = 0.462, P = 0.010).

Discussion

Our results established that DTP involving the temporal coordination of finger-tapping and cognitive tasks increased temporal variability in a task- and tempo-dependent manner. Based on the behavioral aspects, we believe that these modulations of temporal variability might result from the interaction between finger function, arithmetic processing, and temporal processing, especially during the "pre-semantic period". Our findings may help in understanding the temporal processing deficits in various disorders such as dementia, Parkinson's disease, and autism.

A field study of mental workload: conventional bus drivers versus bus rapid transit drivers

Road traffic accidents are increasing worldwide and cause a high number of fatalities and injuries. Mental Work Load (MWL) is a contributing factor in road safety. The primary aim of this work was to study important MWL factors and then compare conventional and BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) drivers' MWL. This study evaluated bus drivers' MWL using the Driving Activity Load Index (DALI) questionnaire conducted with 123 bus drivers in Tehran. The results revealed significant differences between conventional and BRT drivers' mental workload. Moreover, data modelling showed that some organisational and environmental factors such as bus type, working hours per day, road maze, and route traffic volume contribute to drivers' mental workload. These findings suggest some essential customised factors that may help measure and offer practical solutions for decreasing the level of bus drivers' MWL in real-world road driving. Practitioner summaryMental workload is affected by several contributing factors. Depending on the working context, some of these contributing factors have a more significant influence on the level of the experienced MWL. Therefore, the main factors influencing the MWL of BRT and conventional bus drivers were assessed in their real-life environment.Abbreviations: MWL: mental work load; BRT: bus rapid transit; CB: conventional bus; DALI: driving activity load index; NASA-TLX: NASA task load index; SWAT: subjective workload assessment technique; EEG: electroencephalography electrocardiogram; fNIRS: functional magnetic resonance imaging; ITS: intelligent transportation systems; AVL: automated vehicle location.

Neural Correlates Predicting Lane-Keeping and Hazard Detection: An fMRI Study Featuring a Pedestrian-Rich Simulator Environment

Distracted attention is considered responsible for most car accidents, and many functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) researchers have addressed its neural correlates using a car-driving simulator. Previous studies, however, have not directly addressed safe driving performance and did not place pedestrians in the simulator environment. In this fMRI study, we simulated a pedestrian-rich environment to explore the neural correlates of three types of safe driving performance: accurate lane-keeping during driving (driving accuracy), the braking response to a preceding car, and the braking response to a crossing pedestrian. Activation of the bilateral frontoparietal control network predicted high driving accuracy. On the other hand, activation of the left posterior and right anterior superior temporal sulci preceding a sudden pedestrian crossing predicted a slow braking response. The results suggest the involvement of different cognitive processes in different components of driving safety: the facilitatory effect of maintained attention on driving accuracy and the distracting effect of social–cognitive processes on the braking response to pedestrians.

The Dual-Task Cost Is Due to Neural Interferences Disrupting the Optimal Spatio-Temporal Dynamics of the Competing Tasks

Dual-tasking is extremely prominent nowadays, despite ample evidence that it comes with a performance cost: the Dual-Task (DT) cost. Neuroimaging studies have established that tasks are more likely to interfere if they rely on common brain regions, but the precise neural origin of the DT cost has proven elusive so far, mostly because fMRI does not record neural activity directly and cannot reveal the key effect of timing, and how the spatio-temporal neural dynamics of the tasks coincide. Recently, DT electrophysiological studies in monkeys have recorded neural populations shared by the two tasks with millisecond precision to provide a much finer understanding of the origin of the DT cost. We used a similar approach in humans, with intracranial EEG, to assess the neural origin of the DT cost in a particularly challenging naturalistic paradigm which required accurate motor responses to frequent visual stimuli (task T1) and the retrieval of information from long-term memory (task T2), as when answering passengers’ questions while driving. We found that T2 elicited neuroelectric interferences in the gamma-band (>40 Hz), in key regions of the T1 network including the Multiple Demand Network. They reproduced the effect of disruptive electrocortical stimulations to create a situation of dynamical incompatibility, which might explain the DT cost. Yet, participants were able to flexibly adapt their strategy to minimize interference, and most surprisingly, reduce the reliance of T1 on key regions of the executive control network-the anterior insula and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex-with no performance decrement.

Driving With Distraction: Measuring Brain Activity and Oculomotor Behavior Using fMRI and Eye-Tracking

Introduction

Driving motor vehicles is a complex task that depends heavily on how visual stimuli are received and subsequently processed by the brain. The potential impact of distraction on driving performance is well known and poses a safety concern - especially for individuals with cognitive impairments who may be clinically unfit to drive. The present study is the first to combine functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and eye-tracking during simulated driving with distraction, providing oculomotor metrics to enhance scientific understanding of the brain activity that supports driving performance.

Materials and Methods

As initial work, twelve healthy young, right-handed participants performed turns ranging in complexity, including simple right and left turns without oncoming traffic, and left turns with oncoming traffic. Distraction was introduced as an auditory task during straight driving, and during left turns with oncoming traffic. Eye-tracking data were recorded during fMRI to characterize fixations, saccades, pupil diameter and blink rate.

Results

Brain activation maps for right turns, left turns without oncoming traffic, left turns with oncoming traffic, and the distraction conditions were largely consistent with previous literature reporting the neural correlates of simulated driving. When the effects of distraction were evaluated for left turns with oncoming traffic, increased activation was observed in areas involved in executive function (e.g., middle and inferior frontal gyri) as well as decreased activation in the posterior brain (e.g., middle and superior occipital gyri). Whereas driving performance remained mostly unchanged (e.g., turn speed, time to turn, collisions), the oculomotor measures showed that distraction resulted in more consistent gaze at oncoming traffic in a small area of the visual scene; less time spent gazing at off-road targets (e.g., speedometer, rear-view mirror); more time spent performing saccadic eye movements; and decreased blink rate.

Conclusion

Oculomotor behavior modulated with driving task complexity and distraction in a manner consistent with the brain activation features revealed by fMRI. The results suggest that eye-tracking technology should be included in future fMRI studies of simulated driving behavior in targeted populations, such as the elderly and individuals with cognitive complaints - ultimately toward developing better technology to assess and enhance fitness to drive.

Effective Connectivity Analysis of Brain Activated Regions during Distracted Driving

This study aims to use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to assess the effective connectivity between the regions of the brain activated when driving and performing a secondary task (addition task). The subjects used an MR-compatible driving simulator ㅊ to manipulate the driving wheel with both hands and control the pedals (accelerator and brake) with their right foot as if they were driving in an actual environment. Effective connectivity analysis was performed for three regions of the right and the left hemispheres with the highest z-scores, and six of the regions of the entire brain (right and left hemisphere) activated during driving by dynamic causal modeling (DCM). In the right hemisphere, a motor control pathway related to movement control for driving performance was discovered; in the left hemisphere, the pathways in the regions related to movement control for driving performance, starting with the region associated with the secondary task, were discovered. In the whole brain, connectivity was discovered in each of the right and left hemispheres. The motor network of declarative memory, which is the connectivity of the right thalamus, left lingual gyrus, and right precentral gyrus, was worth noting. These results seem meaningful, as they demonstrate the connectivity associated with the control of voluntary movement related to memory from human experience, although limited to driving tasks.

Applications of brain imaging methods in driving behaviour research

Applications of neuroimaging methods have substantially contributed to the scientific understanding of human factors during driving by providing a deeper insight into the neuro-cognitive aspects of driver brain. This has been achieved by conducting simulated (and occasionally, field) driving experiments while collecting driver brain signals of various types. Here, this sector of studies is comprehensively reviewed at both macro and micro scales. At the macro scale, bibliometric aspects of these studies are analysed. At the micro scale, different themes of neuroimaging driving behaviour research are identified and the findings within each theme are synthesised. The surveyed literature has reported on applications of four major brain imaging methods. These include Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), Electroencephalography (EEG), Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) and Magnetoencephalography (MEG), with the first two being the most common methods in this domain. While collecting driver fMRI signal has been particularly instrumental in studying neural correlates of intoxicated driving (e.g. alcohol or cannabis) or distracted driving, the EEG method has been predominantly utilised in relation to the efforts aiming at development of automatic fatigue/drowsiness detection systems, a topic to which the literature on neuro-ergonomics of driving particularly has shown a spike of interest within the last few years. The survey also reveals that topics such as driver brain activity in semi-automated settings or neural activity of drivers with brain injuries or chronic neurological conditions have by contrast been investigated to a very limited extent. Potential topics in driving behaviour research are identified that could benefit from the adoption of neuroimaging methods in future studies. In terms of practicality, while fMRI and MEG experiments have proven rather invasive and technologically challenging for adoption in driving behaviour research, EEG and fNIRS applications have been more diverse. They have even been tested beyond simulated driving settings, in field driving experiments. Advantages and limitations of each of these four neuroimaging methods in the context of driving behaviour experiments are outlined in the paper.

The Influence of Different Auditory Stimuli on Attentiveness and Responsiveness in Road Traffic in Simulated Traffic Situations

The use of portable media has become an integral part of our increasingly mobile society. The use of digital audio books is also growing steadily in Germany. The connection between the psychological effect of music of different volumes and rhythms and the change in reaction in road traffic with a corresponding increase in risk behavior, especially when driving, has already been proven in previous studies. Only a few studies are available on the effects of listening to radio plays on reaction behavior and concentration in road traffic as well as on risk behavior among pedestrians and cyclists. In the present study, we have investigated the influences of pop music and a radio play on reaction behavior and thus driving ability during the execution of a traffic psychological test series from the "Wiener Test System". The central topic deals with the performance of the test subjects in the individual tests. Conclusions are drawn on the reaction behavior and concentration during participation in road traffic and thus the risk of distraction and possible increased risk of accidents. Studies on the influence of auditory stimuli and their effects on concentration and reaction during participation in traffic are of great interest from the point of view of traffic psychology and occupational medicine, since a reduction in the risk of accidents can increase general traffic safety and lead to a decrease in sick leave and therefore fewer absences from work.

Drivers' Braking Behavior Affected by Cognitive Distractions: An Experimental Investigation with a Virtual Car Simulator

In this study, a cohort of 78 university students performed a driving experience in a virtual urban scenario, by means of a car driving simulator, to examine effects of a planned hands-free mobile phone conversation on young drivers’ braking behaviors. To this aim, a control group was left free to drive without any imposed cognitive task. An experimental group faced the same scenario while engaged in a phone call. The conversation via earphones was arranged to diminish the amount of cognitive resources allocated to the driving task. For both groups, the analyses focused on the moment at which a child entered a pedestrian crossing from a sidewalk. The results of a mixed two-way ANOVA showed the presence of a significant difference for distracted and non-distracted drivers with the absence of gender-related differences across the two groups. Distracted participants assumed lower initial speeds, took the first action to stop at shorter distances from the zebra crossing, and had more difficulty in keeping speed variations under control. These findings suggest that the distraction induced by the use of earphones may induce risk compensation behaviors and delay pedestrian perception. Moreover, the effects on the participants’ braking behavior suggest that the procedure adopted to increase cognitive load, based on a story retelling, is an effective method to analyze the impact of hands-free cellphone use on driving skills in a car simulation experiment.

The Shape of a Vehicle Windshield Affects Reaction Time and Brain Activity During a Target Detection Task

Background: Achieving clear visibility through a windshield is one of the crucial factors in manufacturing a safe and comfortable vehicle. The optic flow (OF) through the windshield has been reported to divert attention and could impair visibility. Although a growing number of behavioral and neuroimaging studies have assessed drivers’ attention in various driving scenarios, there is still little evidence of a relationship between OF, windshield shape, and driver’s attentional efficacy. The purpose of this research was to examine this relationship.

Methods: First, we quantified the OF across the windshield in a simulated driving scenario with either of two types of the windshield (a tilted or vertical pillar) at different speeds (60 km/h or 160 km/h) and found more upward OF along the tilted pillar than along the vertical pillar. Therefore, we hypothesized that the predominance of upward OF around the windshield along a tilted pillar could distract a driver and that we could observe the corresponding neural activity. Magnetic resonance scans were then obtained while the subjects performed a visual detection task while watching the driving scene used in the OF analysis. The subjects were required to press a button as rapidly as possible when a target appeared at one of five positions (leftmost, left, center, right, and rightmost).

Results: We found that the reaction time (RT) on exposure to a tilted pillar was longer than that on exposure to a vertical pillar in the leftmost and rightmost conditions. Furthermore, there was more brain activity in the precuneus when the pillar was tilted than when it was vertical in the rightmost condition near the pillar. In a separate analysis, activation in the precuneus was found to reflect relative changes in the amount of upward OF when the target was at the rightmost position.

Conclusions: Overall, these observations suggest that activation in the precuneus may reflect extraneous cognitive load driven by upward OF along the pillar and could distract visual attention. The findings of this study highlight the value of a cognitive neuroscientific approach to research and development in the motor vehicle manufacturing industry.

Brain-based limitations in attention and secondary task engagement during high-fidelity driving simulation among young adults

Distracted driving remains a leading factor in fatal motor vehicle crashes, particularly in young drivers. Due to ongoing neuromaturation, attention capabilities are changing and improving throughout young adulthood. Here, we sought to bridge neuroscience with driving simulation by evaluating the effects of driving on attention processing through a selective auditory attention task. Participants (18-25 years old) engaged in an auditory attention task during LOAD (driving a high-fidelity simulator) and No-LOAD conditions (sitting in the parked simulator). For the auditory task, participants responded to a target auditory tone in a target ear. The event-related potential components, collected from frontal and posterior regions, P2 and P3, were used to evaluate attention processing across LOAD and No-LOAD conditions for attended and unattended stimuli. Data from 24 participants were evaluated in repeated measures ANOVAs, considering interactions between load and attention conditions for the P2 and P3 components of the cortical region. We observed a significant difference between response to attended and unattended stimuli for posterior P2 and P3 responses at the frontal and posterior midline sites. Comparing LOAD and No-LOAD conditions, there was a significant difference for P2 response at the posterior site and P3 response at the frontal site. A significant interaction between load and attended stimuli was found for P3 response at the posterior site. These data document differences in neural processing of auditory stimuli during high-fidelity simulated driving versus sitting parked in the simulator. Findings suggest the cognitive load of driving affects auditory attention.

When adding is right: Temporal order judgements reveal spatial attention shifts during two-digit mental arithmetic

Recent research suggests that addition and subtraction induce horizontal shifts of attention. Previous studies used single-digit (1d) problems or verification paradigms that lend themselves to alternative solution strategies beyond mental arithmetic. To measure spatial attention during the active production of solutions to complex two-digit arithmetic problems (2d) without manual motor involvement, we used a temporal order judgement (TOJ) paradigm in which two lateralised targets were sequentially presented on screen with a varying stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA). Participants verbally indicated which target appeared first. By varying the delay between the arithmetic problem presentation and the TOJ task, we investigated how arithmetically induced attention shifts develop over time (Experiment 1, n = 31 and Experiment 2, n = 58). In Experiment 2, we additionally varied the carry property of the arithmetic task to examine how task difficulty modulates the effects. In the arithmetic task, participants were first presented with the arithmetic problem via headphones and performed the TOJ task after the delay before responding to the arithmetic task. To account for spontaneous attentional biases, a baseline TOJ was run without arithmetic processing. Both experiments revealed that addition induces shifts of spatial attention to the right suggesting that visuospatial attention mechanisms are recruited during complex arithmetic. We observed no difference in spatial attention between the carry and noncarry condition (Experiment 2). No shifts were observed for subtraction problems. No common and conclusive influence of delay was observed across experiments. Qualitative differences between addition and subtraction and the role of task difficulty are discussed.

Tracing the physiological response and behavioral performance of drivers at different levels of mental workload using driving simulators

INTRODUCTION

The use of mobile phones while driving is known to be a distraction factor and a cause of accidents. The way in which different kinds of conversations affect the behavioral performance of the driver as well as the persistence of the effects are not yet fully understood.

METHOD

In this study, in addition to comparing brain function and behavioral function in dual task conditions in three conversations types, the persistent effects of these types of conversations have also been traced.

RESULTS

The results show that the content of the mobile phone conversation while driving is the cause of the persistent changes in behavioral and brain functions. Increased time headway and lane departure was observed during and up to 5 min after the emotional conversation was finished. EEG bands also varied in different types of conversations. Cognitive conversations caused an increase in the activity of the alpha and beta bands while emotional conversations enhanced the rate of gamma and beta bands. A meaningful correlation was found between changes in the theta and alpha bands and changes in behavioral performance both during the dual task condition and after the conversation was finished, was also observed.

CONCLUSIONS

The content of the conversation is one of the most important factors that increase the risk of road accidents. This can also deteriorate the behavioral performance of the driver and can have persistent effects on behavioral performance and the brain. Practical applications: The findings of this study provide a basis to measure and tracing drivers' cognitive distractions induced by different levels of mental workload through physiological and behavioral performances.

An fMRI study of inhibitory control and the effects of exposure to violence in Latin-American early adolescents: alterations in frontoparietal activation and performance

We used functional magnetic resonance to investigate the effects of exposure to violence on early adolescent brain function in an inhibitory control task. We investigated the association among scores on self-reported exposure to violence, performance and brain activation. Thirty-seven early adolescents (ages 10-14) from a Latin-American urban region participated in the study. Results showed that recent and chronic exposure to violence was associated with less activation of a network of frontal regions, including the anterior cingulate gyrus and the superior frontal cortex; recent exposure to violence was also associated with less activation of the superior parietal lobe. Results also showed that less activation correlated with more prominent deterioration in the performance in the inhibitory control task (increased latency with time). The findings suggest that early adolescence exposure to violence is associated with differences in activation of a neural network commonly associated with executive function and control. The results underscore the urgency of addressing exposure to violence in adolescence, a period of high susceptibility to the environment, and are discussed in the light of the evidence of the effects of violence on adolescent brain function. Executive function training may be a candidate for targeted cognitive interventions aimed at mitigating these effects.

Hemodynamic responses to visual cues during attentive listening in autonomous versus manual simulated driving: A pilot study

Emerging automation technologies could have a strong impact on the allocation of drivers' attentional resources. The first objective of this pilot study is to investigate the hemodynamic responses evoked to relevant visual stimuli in manual and autonomous driving. The second aim is to examine how the inclusion of a secondary task (attentive listening to a broadcast) modulates these hemodynamic responses in both driving situations. Frontal, temporo-parietal and occipital activations were recorded using a functional Near-InfraRed Spectroscopy (fNIRS) system. Event-related analysis was used to determine whether visual cue processing (specifically, the lighting of a lead vehicle's brake-lights) could induce different brain responses depending on the driving mode and on the presence or absence of a competing task. Mind-wandering as reported by the participants was more pronounced during autonomous compared to manual driving. Our results showed an increase in the OxyHb concentration in the right temporo-parietal and occipital areas during manual compared to autonomous driving, suggesting greater allocation of attentional resources for processing visual cues in the first condition. Finally, an event-related decrease in right frontal activity during autonomous driving when listening was observed, suggesting that attentional resources were more focused on the secondary task than on monitoring the driving scene.

Effects of multitasking and intention-behaviour consistency when facing yellow traffic light uncertainty

We examined the effects of multitasking on resolving response bistability to yellow traffic lights, using the performance metrics of reaction time and stopping frequency. We also examined whether people's actual behaviours, measured by implicit foot pedal responses, differed from their intentions related to these factors, as measured by explicit verbal commands. In a dual-task paradigm, participants responded to random traffic light changes, presented over a static background photograph of an intersection, using either foot pedals or verbal commands, while simultaneously identifying spoken words as either "animals" or "artefacts" via button pressing. The dual-task condition was found to prolong reaction times relative to a single-task condition. In addition, verbal commands were faster than the foot pedal responses, and conservativeness was the same for both types of responses. A second experiment, which provided a more dynamic simulation of the first experiment, confirmed that conservativeness did not differ between verbal commands and foot pedal responses. We conclude that multitasking affects a person's ability to resolve response bistability to yellow traffic lights. If one considers that prolonged reaction times reduce the amount of distance available to safely stop at intersections, this study underscores how multitasking poses a considerable safety risk for drivers approaching a yellow traffic light.

Neural Correlates of Simulated Driving While Performing a Secondary Task: A Review

Distracted driving consists in performing a secondary task while driving, such as cell-phone conversation. Given the limited resources of the attentional system, engaging in a secondary task while driving increases the risk to have car accidents. The secondary task engagement while driving can depend on or be affected by different factors, including driver's individual characteristics, necessities, environmental conditions, and so forth. In the present work, the neuroimaging studies that investigated the brain areas involved in simulated driving during the execution of a secondary task (visual and overall auditory tasks) were reviewed in light of driving settings. In general, although there are also differences in decrease and increase brain activations across studies, due to the varieties of paradigms used (simulators, secondary tasks and neuroimaging techniques), the dual-task condition (simulated driving plus secondary task), as compared to the simulated driving-alone condition, was generally found to yield a significant shift in activations from occipital to fronto-parietal brain regions. These findings show that when a secondary task is added during driving the neural system redirects attentional resources away from visual processing, increasing the possibility of incorrect, dangerous or risky behavioral responses. The shift of the attentional resources can occur even if driving behavior is not explicitly affected. Limits of the neuroimaging studies reviewed and future research directions, including the need to explore the role of personality factors in the modulation of the neural programs while engaging distracted driving, are briefly discussed.

Neural Comodulation of Independent Brain Processes Related to Multitasking

Distracted driving is regarded as an integrated task requiring different regions of the brain to receive sensory data, coordinate information, make decisions, and synchronize movements. In this paper, we applied an independent modulator analysis (IMA) method to temporally independent electroencephalography (EEG) components to understand how the human executive control system coordinates different brain regions to simultaneously perform multiple tasks with distractions presented in different modalities. The behavioral results showed that the reaction time (RT) in response to traffic events increased while multitasking. Moreover, the RT was longer when the distractor was presented in an auditory form versus a visual form. The IMA results showed that there were performance-related IMs coordinating different brain regions during distracted driving. The component spectral fluctuations affected by the modulators were distinct between the single- and dual-task conditions. Specifically, more modulatory weight was projected to the occipital region to address the additional distracting stimulus in both visual and auditory modality in the dual-task conditions. A comparison of modulatory weights between auditory and visual distractors showed that more modulatory weight was projected to the frontal region during the processing of the auditory distractor. This paper provides valuable insights into the temporal dynamics of attentional modulation during multitasking as well as an understanding of the underlying brain mechanisms that mediate the synchronization across brain regions and govern the allocation of attention in distracted driving.

Modulating Applied Task Performance via Transcranial Electrical Stimulation

Basic and applied research are increasingly adopting transcranial electrical stimulation (tES) for modulating perceptual, cognitive, affective, and motor processes. Industry and defense applications of tES hold potential for accelerating training and knowledge acquisition and sustaining work-related performance in the face of fatigue, workload, and stress. This mini-review article describes the promises and perils of tES, and reviews research testing its influence on two broad applied areas: sustaining and dividing attention, and operating in virtual environments. Also included is a discussion of challenges related to viable mechanistic explanations for tES effectiveness, attempts at replication and consideration of null results, and the potential importance of individual differences in predicting tES influences on human performance. Finally, future research directions are proposed to address these challenges and help develop a fuller understanding of tES viability for enhancing real-world performance.

Bibliometric analysis of simulated driving research from 1997 to 2016

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this study was to explore the evolution footprints of simulated driving research in the past 20 years through rigorous and systematic bibliometric analysis, to provide insights regarding when and where the research was performed and by whom and how the mainstream content evolved over the years.

METHODS

The analysis began with data retrieval in Web of Science with defined search terms related to simulated driving. BibExcel and CiteSpace were employed to conduct the performance analysis and co-citation network analysis; that is, probe of the performance of institutes, journals, authors, and research hotspots.

RESULTS

A total of 3,766 documents were filtered out and presented an exponential growth from 1997 to 2016. The United States contributed the most publications as well as international collaborations followed by Germany and China. In addition, several universities in The Netherlands and the United States dominated the list of contributing institutes. The leading journals were in transportation and ergonomics. The leading researchers were also recognized among the 8,721 contributing authors, such as J. D. Lee, D. L. Fisher, J. H. Kim, and K. A. Brookhuis. Finally, the co-citation analysis illuminated the evolution of simulated driving research that covered the following topics roughly in chronological order: task-induced stress, drivers with neurological disorders, alertness and sleepiness while driving, trust toward driving assistance systems, driver distraction, the effect of drug use, the validity of simulators, and automated driving.

CONCLUSIONS

This article employed bibliometric tools to probe the contributing countries, institutes, journals, authors, and mainstream hotspots of simulated driving research in the past 20 years. A systematic bibliometric analysis of this field will help researchers realize the panorama of global simulated driving and establish future research directions.

Quantifying Intermodal Distraction by Emotion During Math Performance: An Electrophysiological Approach

Emotionally engaging stimuli are powerful competitors for limited attention capacity. In the cognitive neuroscience laboratory, the presence of task-irrelevant emotionally arousing visual distractors prompts decreased performance and attenuated brain responses measured in concurrent visual tasks. The extent to which distraction effects occur across different sensory modalities is not yet established, however. Here, we examined the extent and time course of competition between a naturalistic distractor sound and a visual task stimulus, using dense-array electroencephalography (EEG) recordings from 20 college students. Steady-state visual evoked potentials (ssVEPs) were quantified from EEG, elicited by periodically flickering vignettes displaying basic arithmetic problems - the participants' primary task. Concurrently, low-arousing and high-arousing sounds were presented, as well as auditory pink noise, used as a control. Capitalizing on the temporal dynamics of the ssVEP signal allowed us to study intermodal interference of the sounds with the processing of the visual math problems. We observed that high-arousing sounds were associated with diminished visuocortical responses and poor performance, compared to low-arousing sounds and pink noise, suggesting that emotional distraction acts across modalities. We discuss the role of sensory cortices in emotional distraction along with implications for translational research in educational neuroscience.

Active Listening Delays Attentional Disengagement and Saccadic Eye Movements

Successful goal-directed visual behavior depends on efficient disengagement of attention. Attention must be withdrawn from its current focus before being redeployed to a new object or internal process. Previous research has demonstrated that occupying cognitive processes with a secondary cellular phone conversation impairs attentional functioning and driving behavior. For example, attentional processing is significantly impacted by concurrent cell phone use, resulting in decreased explicit memory for on-road information. Here, we examined the impact of a critical component of cell-phone use-active listening-on the effectiveness of attentional disengagement. In the gap task-a saccadic manipulation of attentional disengagement-we measured saccade latencies while participants performed a secondary active listening task. Saccadic latencies significantly increased under an active listening load only when attention needed to be disengaged, indicating that active listening delays a disengagement operation. Simple dual-task interference did not account for the observed results. Rather, active cognitive engagement is required for measurable disengagement slowing to be observed. These results have implications for investigations of attention, gaze behavior, and distracted driving. Secondary tasks such as active listening or cell-phone conversations can have wide-ranging impacts on cognitive functioning, potentially impairing relatively elementary operations of attentional function, including disengagement.

Demonstrating Brain-Level Interactions Between Visuospatial Attentional Demands and Working Memory Load While Driving Using Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy

Driving is a complex task concurrently drawing on multiple cognitive resources. Yet, there is a lack of studies investigating interactions at the brain-level among different driving subtasks in dual-tasking. This study investigates how visuospatial attentional demands related to increased driving difficulty interacts with different working memory load (WML) levels at the brain level. Using multichannel whole-head high density functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) brain activation measurements, we aimed to predict driving difficulty level, both separate for each WML level and with a combined model. Participants drove for approximately 60 min on a highway with concurrent traffic in a virtual reality driving simulator. In half of the time, the course led through a construction site with reduced lane width, increasing visuospatial attentional demands. Concurrently, participants performed a modified version of the n-back task with five different WML levels (from 0-back up to 4-back), forcing them to continuously update, memorize, and recall the sequence of the previous 'n' speed signs and adjust their speed accordingly. Using multivariate logistic ridge regression, we were able to correctly predict driving difficulty in 75.0% of the signal samples (1.955 Hz sampling rate) across 15 participants in an out-of-sample cross-validation of classifiers trained on fNIRS data separately for each WML level. There was a significant effect of the WML level on the driving difficulty prediction accuracies [range 62.2-87.1%; χ2(4) = 19.9, p < 0.001, Kruskal-Wallis H test] with highest prediction rates at intermediate WML levels. On the contrary, training one classifier on fNIRS data across all WML levels severely degraded prediction performance (mean accuracy of 46.8%). Activation changes in the bilateral dorsal frontal (putative BA46), bilateral inferior parietal (putative BA39), and left superior parietal (putative BA7) areas were most predictive to increased driving difficulty. These discriminative patterns diminished at higher WML levels indicating that visuospatial attentional demands and WML involve interacting underlying brain processes. The changing pattern of driving difficulty related brain areas across WML levels could indicate potential changes in the multitasking strategy with level of WML demand, in line with the multiple resource theory.

Driving Ability in Alzheimer Disease Spectrum: Neural Basis, Assessment, and Potential Use of Optic Flow Event-Related Potentials

Driving requires multiple cognitive functions including visuospatial perception and recruits widespread brain networks. Recently, traffic accidents in dementia, particularly in Alzheimer disease spectrum (ADS), have increased and become an urgent social problem. Therefore, it is necessary to develop the objective and reliable biomarkers for driving ability in patients with ADS. Interestingly, even in the early stage of the disease, patients with ADS are characterized by the impairment of visuospatial function such as radial optic flow (OF) perception related to self-motion perception. For the last decade, we have studied the feasibility of event-related potentials (ERPs) in response to radial OF in ADS and proposed that OF-ERPs provided an additional information on the alteration of visuospatial perception in ADS (1, 2). Hence, we hypothesized that OF-ERPs can be a possible predictive biomarker of driving ability in ADS. In this review, the recent concept of neural substrates of driving in healthy humans are firstly outlined. Second, we mention the alterations of driving performance and its brain network in ADS. Third, the current status of assessment tools for driving ability is stated. Fourth, we describe ERP studies related to driving ability in ADS. Further, the neural basis of OF processing and OF-ERPs in healthy humans are mentioned. Finally, the application of OF-ERPs to ADS is described. The aim of this review was to introduce the potential use of OF-ERPs for assessment of driving ability in ADS.

Task errors by emergency physicians are associated with interruptions, multitasking, fatigue and working memory capacity: a prospective, direct observation study

BACKGROUND

Interruptions and multitasking have been demonstrated in experimental studies to reduce individuals' task performance. These behaviours are frequently used by clinicians in high-workload, dynamic clinical environments, yet their effects have rarely been studied.

OBJECTIVE

To assess the relative contributions of interruptions and multitasking by emergency physicians to prescribing errors.

METHODS

36 emergency physicians were shadowed over 120 hours. All tasks, interruptions and instances of multitasking were recorded. Physicians' working memory capacity (WMC) and preference for multitasking were assessed using the Operation Span Task (OSPAN) and Inventory of Polychronic Values. Following observation, physicians were asked about their sleep in the previous 24 hours. Prescribing errors were used as a measure of task performance. We performed multivariate analysis of prescribing error rates to determine associations with interruptions and multitasking, also considering physician seniority, age, psychometric measures, workload and sleep.

RESULTS

Physicians experienced 7.9 interruptions/hour. 28 clinicians were observed prescribing 239 medication orders which contained 208 prescribing errors. While prescribing, clinicians were interrupted 9.4 times/hour. Error rates increased significantly if physicians were interrupted (rate ratio (RR) 2.82; 95% CI 1.23 to 6.49) or multitasked (RR 1.86; 95% CI 1.35 to 2.56) while prescribing. Having below-average sleep showed a >15-fold increase in clinical error rate (RR 16.44; 95% CI 4.84 to 55.81). WMC was protective against errors; for every 10-point increase on the 75-point OSPAN, a 19% decrease in prescribing errors was observed. There was no effect of polychronicity, workload, physician gender or above-average sleep on error rates.

CONCLUSION

Interruptions, multitasking and poor sleep were associated with significantly increased rates of prescribing errors among emergency physicians. WMC mitigated the negative influence of these factors to an extent. These results confirm experimental findings in other fields and raise questions about the acceptability of the high rates of multitasking and interruption in clinical environments.

Altered Functional Brain Connectivity in Mild Cognitive Impairment during a Cognitively Complex Car Following Task

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) can affect multiple cognitive abilities, leading to difficulty in performing complex, cognitively demanding daily tasks, such as driving. This study combined driving simulation and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate brain function in individuals with MCI while they performed a car-following task. The behavioral driving performance of 24 patients with MCI and 20 healthy age-matched controls was compared during a simulated car-following task. Functional brain connectivity during driving was analyzed for a separate cohort of 15 patients with MCI and 15 controls. Individuals with MCI had minor difficulty with lane maintenance, exhibiting significantly increased variability in steering compared to controls. Patients with MCI also exhibited reduced connectivity between fronto-parietal regions, as well as between regions involved in cognitive control (medial frontal cortex) and regions important for visual processing (cuneus, angular gyrus, superior occipital cortex, inferior and superior parietal cortex). Greater difficulty in lane maintenance (i.e., increased steering variability and lane deviations) among individuals with MCI was further associated with increased connectivity between the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and inferior frontal gyrus, as well as increased intra-cerebellar connectivity. Thus, compared to cognitively healthy controls, patients with MCI showed reduced connectivity between regions involved in visual attention, visual processing, cognitive control, and performance monitoring. Greater difficulty with lane maintenance among patients with MCI may reflect failure to inhibit components of the default-mode network (PCC), leading to interference with task-relevant networks as well as alterations in cerebellum connectivity.

Theta and Alpha Oscillations in Attentional Interaction during Distracted Driving

Performing multiple tasks simultaneously usually affects the behavioral performance as compared with executing the single task. Moreover, processing multiple tasks simultaneously often involve more cognitive demands. Two visual tasks, lane-keeping task and mental calculation, were utilized to assess the brain dynamics through 32-channel electroencephalogram (EEG) recorded from 14 participants. A 400-ms stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) factor was used to induce distinct levels of attentional requirements. In the dual-task conditions, the deteriorated behavior reflected the divided attention and the overlapping brain resources used. The frontal, parietal and occipital components were decomposed by independent component analysis (ICA) algorithm. The event- and response-related theta and alpha oscillations in selected brain regions were investigated first. The increased theta oscillation in frontal component and decreased alpha oscillations in parietal and occipital components reflect the cognitive demands and attentional requirements as executing the designed tasks. Furthermore, time-varying interactive over-additive (O-Add), additive (Add) and under-additive (U-Add) activations were explored and summarized through the comparison between the summation of the elicited spectral perturbations in two single-task conditions and the spectral perturbations in the dual task. Add and U-Add activations were observed while executing the dual tasks. U-Add theta and alpha activations dominated the posterior region in dual-task situations. Our results show that both deteriorated behaviors and interactive brain activations should be comprehensively considered for evaluating workload or attentional interaction precisely.

The Effects of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) on Psychomotor and Visual Perception Functions Related to Driving Skills

Objective: It could be demonstrated that anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) enhances accuracy in working memory tasks and reaction time in healthy adults and thus may also have an influence on complex everyday tasks like driving a car. However, no studies have applied tDCS to psychomotor skills related to a standard driving test so far.

Methods: 10 female and 5 male healthy adults without any medication and history of psychiatric or neurological illness were randomly assigned to two groups receiving active and sham stimulation in a double blind, cross-over study design. Standardized computerized psychomotor tests according to the German guidelines for road and traffic safety were administered at baseline. Then they performed the same tests during an anodal or sham tDCS of the left DLPFC in two separated sessions.

Results: No significant improvements in skills related to driving performance like visual perception, stress tolerance, concentration, and vigilance could be shown after left anodal prefrontal tDCS. Side effects were low and did not differ between active and sham stimulation.

Conclusions: The findings of our study indicate that left prefrontal tDCS may not alter driving skills affording more automated action patterns but as shown in previous studies may have an influence on driving behavior requiring executive control processes. This however has to be proved in future studies and within greater samples.

A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of On-Road Simulator and Cognitive Driving Assessment in Alzheimer's Disease and Mild Cognitive Impairment

BACKGROUND

Many individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) are at an increased risk of driving impairment. There is a need for tools with sufficient validity to help clinicians assess driving ability.

OBJECTIVE

Provide a systematic review and meta-analysis of the primary driving assessment methods (on-road, cognitive, driving simulation assessments) in patients with MCI and AD.

METHODS

We investigated (1) the predictive utility of cognitive tests and domains, and (2) the areas and degree of driving impairment in patients with MCI and AD. Effect sizes were derived and analyzed in a random effects model.

RESULTS

Thirty-two articles (including 1,293 AD patients, 92 MCI patients, 2,040 healthy older controls) met inclusion criteria. Driving outcomes included: On-road test scores, pass/fail classifications, errors; caregiver reports; real world crash involvement; and driving simulator collisions/risky behavior. Executive function (ES [95% CI]; 0.61 [0.41, 0.81]), attention (0.55 [0.33, 0.77]), visuospatial function (0.50 [0.34, 0.65]), and global cognition (0.61 [0.39, 0.83]) emerged as significant predictors of driving performance. Trail Making Test Part B (TMT-B, 0.61 [0.28, 0.94]), TMT-A (0.65 [0.08, 1.21]), and Maze test (0.88 [0.60, 1.15]) emerged as the best single predictors of driving performance. Patients with very mild AD (CDR = 0.5) mild AD (CDR = 1) were more likely to fail an on-road test than healthy control drivers (CDR = 0), with failure rates of 13.6%, 33.3% and 1.6%, respectively.

CONCLUSION

The driving ability of patients with MCI and AD appears to be related to degree of cognitive impairment. Across studies, there are inconsistent cognitive predictors and reported driving outcomes in MCI and AD patients. Future large-scale studies should investigate the driving performance and associated neural networks of subgroups of AD (very mild, mild, moderate) and MCI (amnestic, non-amnestic, single-domain, multiple-domain).

The relationship between personalities and self-report positive driving behavior in a Chinese sample

Driving behaviors play an important role in accident involvement. Concretely speaking, aberrant driving behaviors would cause more accidents, and oppositely positive driving behaviors would promote to build safety traffic environment. The main goals of this study were to explore the positive driving behavior and its relationship with personality in a Chinese sample. A total of 421 licensed drivers (286 male and 135 female) from Beijing, China completed the Positive Driver Behavior Scale (PDBS), the Driver Behavior Questionnaire (DBQ), the Dula Dangerous Driving Index (DDDI) and the Big Five Inventory (BFI) on a voluntary and anonymous basis. The results showed that the Chinese version of the PDBS has both reliability and validity and that the PDBS was significantly correlated with the BFI. Specifically, the PDBS was negatively correlated with neuroticism (r = -0.38) and positively correlated with extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experience (the correlation coefficient ranged from 0.36 to 0.55). In contrast with previous research, age was negatively correlated with the PDBS (r = -0.38) in our sample, which may have resulted from less driving experience or a lack of available cognitive resources.

Neural correlates of motor-cognitive dual-tasking in young and old adults

When two tasks are performed simultaneously, performance often declines in one or both tasks. These so-called dual-task costs are more pronounced in old than in young adults. One proposed neurological mechanism of the dual-task costs is that old compared with young adults tend to execute single-tasks with higher brain activation. In the brain regions that are needed for both tasks, the reduced residual capacity may interfere with performance of the dual-task. This competition for shared brain regions has been called structural interference. The purpose of the study was to determine whether structural interference indeed plays a role in the age-related decrease in dual-task performance. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to investigate 23 young adults (20–29 years) and 32 old adults (66–89 years) performing a calculation (serial subtraction by seven) and balance-simulation (plantar flexion force control) task separately or simultaneously. Behavioral performance decreased during the dual-task compared with the single-tasks in both age groups, with greater dual-task costs in old compared with young adults. Brain activation was significantly higher in old than young adults during all conditions. Region of interest analyses were performed on brain regions that were active in both tasks. Structural interference was apparent in the right insula, as quantified by an age-related reduction in upregulation of brain activity from single- to dual-task. However, the magnitude of upregulation did not correlate with dual-task costs. Therefore, we conclude that the greater dual-task costs in old adults were probably not due to increased structural interference.

Functional connectivity analysis of distracted drivers based on the wavelet phase coherence of functional near-infrared spectroscopy signals

The present study aimed to evaluate the functional connectivity (FC) in relevant cortex areas during simulated driving with distraction based on functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) method. Twelve subjects were recruited to perform three types of driving tasks, namely, straight driving, straight driving with secondary auditory task, and straight driving with secondary visual vigilance task, on a driving simulator. The wavelet amplitude (WA) and wavelet phase coherence (WPCO) of the fNIRS signals were calculated in six frequency intervals: I, 0.6-2 Hz; II, 0.145-0.6 Hz; III, 0.052-0.145 Hz; IV, 0.021-0.052 Hz; and V, 0.0095-0.021 Hz, VI, 0.005-0.0095Hz. Results showed that secondary tasks during driving led to worse driving performance, brain activity changes, and dynamic configuration of the connectivity. The significantly lower WA value in the right motor cortex in interval IV, and higher WPCO values in intervals II, V, and VI were found with additional auditory task. Significant standard deviation of speed and lower WA values in the left prefrontal cortex and right prefrontal cortex in interval VI, and lower WPCO values in intervals I, IV, V, and VI were found under the additional visual vigilance task. The results suggest that the changed FC levels in intervals IV, V, and VI were more likely to reflect the driver's distraction condition. The present study provides new insights into the relationship between distracted driving behavior and brain activity. The method may be used for the evaluation of drivers' attention level.

Effects of Cognitive Load on Driving Performance: The Cognitive Control Hypothesis

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this paper was to outline an explanatory framework for understanding effects of cognitive load on driving performance and to review the existing experimental literature in the light of this framework.

BACKGROUND

Although there is general consensus that taking the eyes off the forward roadway significantly impairs most aspects of driving, the effects of primarily cognitively loading tasks on driving performance are not well understood.

METHOD

Based on existing models of driver attention, an explanatory framework was outlined. This framework can be summarized in terms of the cognitive control hypothesis: Cognitive load selectively impairs driving subtasks that rely on cognitive control but leaves automatic performance unaffected. An extensive literature review was conducted wherein existing results were reinterpreted based on the proposed framework.

RESULTS

It was demonstrated that the general pattern of experimental results reported in the literature aligns well with the cognitive control hypothesis and that several apparent discrepancies between studies can be reconciled based on the proposed framework. More specifically, performance on nonpracticed or inherently variable tasks, relying on cognitive control, is consistently impaired by cognitive load, whereas the performance on automatized (well-practiced and consistently mapped) tasks is unaffected and sometimes even improved.

CONCLUSION

Effects of cognitive load on driving are strongly selective and task dependent.

APPLICATION

The present results have important implications for the generalization of results obtained from experimental studies to real-world driving. The proposed framework can also serve to guide future research on the potential causal role of cognitive load in real-world crashes.

Imaging gait analysis: An fMRI dual task study

INTRODUCTION

In geriatric clinical diagnostics, gait analysis with cognitive-motor dual tasking is used to predict fall risk and cognitive decline. To date, the neural correlates of cognitive-motor dual tasking processes are not fully understood. To investigate these underlying neural mechanisms, we designed an fMRI paradigm to reproduce the gait analysis.

METHODS

We tested the fMRI paradigm's feasibility in a substudy with fifteen young adults and assessed 31 healthy older adults in the main study. First, gait speed and variability were quantified using the GAITRite^© electronic walkway. Then, participants lying in the MRI-scanner were stepping on pedals of an MRI-compatible stepping device used to imitate gait during functional imaging. In each session, participants performed cognitive and motor single tasks as well as cognitive-motor dual tasks.

RESULTS

Behavioral results showed that the parameters of both gait analyses, GAITRite^© and fMRI, were significantly positively correlated. FMRI results revealed significantly reduced brain activation during dual task compared to single task conditions. Functional ROI analysis showed that activation in the superior parietal lobe (SPL) decreased less from single to dual task condition than activation in primary motor cortex and in supplementary motor areas. Moreover, SPL activation was increased during dual tasks in subjects exhibiting lower stepping speed and lower executive control.

CONCLUSION

We were able to simulate walking during functional imaging with valid results that reproduce those from the GAITRite^© gait analysis. On the neural level, SPL seems to play a crucial role in cognitive-motor dual tasking and to be linked to divided attention processes, particularly when motor activity is involved.

Distraction-related road traffic collisions

OBJECTIVES

We aimed to prospectively study distraction-related road traffic collision injuries, their contributory factors, severity, and outcome.

METHODS

Data were prospectively collected on all hospitalized road traffic collision trauma patients in Al-Ain City who were drivers at the collision time over one and half years. Driver's inattentive behaviors preceding the collision were collected by interviewing the admitted drivers.

RESULTS

There were 444 drivers, 330 of them were fully oriented patients, out of them only 44 (13%) were distracted. Nineteen (5.8%) drivers were distracted by using mobile phones, 12 (3.6%) were pre-occupied with deep thinking, six (1.8%) were talking with other passengers, four (1.2%) were picking things in the vehicle, and three (0.9%) were using entertainment systems. The maximum distraction occurred during the time of 6 am - 12 noon when the traffic was crowded. There were no significant differences between distracted and non-distracted drivers in demographical and physiological factors, injured regions, and outcomes.

CONCLUSION

Distraction of alert drivers causes 13% of road traffic collisions in Al-Ain city. About 40 percent of the distracted drivers involved in road traffic collisions (RTC) were using mobile phones. Our study supports the ban of use of cell phones while driving.

Search strategies of Wikipedia readers

The quest for information is one of the most common activity of human beings. Despite the the impressive progress of search engines, not to miss the needed piece of information could be still very tough, as well as to acquire specific competences and knowledge by shaping and following the proper learning paths. Indeed, the need to find sensible paths in information networks is one of the biggest challenges of our societies and, to effectively address it, it is important to investigate the strategies adopted by human users to cope with the cognitive bottleneck of finding their way in a growing sea of information. Here we focus on the case of Wikipedia and investigate a recently released dataset about users’ click on the English Wikipedia, namely the English Wikipedia Clickstream. We perform a semantically charged analysis to uncover the general patterns followed by information seekers in the multi-dimensional space of Wikipedia topics/categories. We discover the existence of well defined strategies in which users tend to start from very general, i.e., semantically broad, pages and progressively narrow down the scope of their navigation, while keeping a growing semantic coherence. This is unlike strategies associated to tasks with predefined search goals, namely the case of the Wikispeedia game. In this case users first move from the ‘particular’ to the ‘universal’ before focusing down again to the required target. The clear picture offered here represents a very important stepping stone towards a better design of information networks and recommendation strategies, as well as the construction of radically new learning paths.