title: Exploring Neuro-Physiological Correlates of Drivers' Mental Fatigue Caused by Sleep Deprivation Using Simultaneous EEG, ECG, and fNIRS Data.
abstract: Investigations of the neuro-physiological correlates of mental loads, or states, have attracted significant attention recently, as it is particularly important to evaluate mental fatigue in drivers operating a motor vehicle. In this research, we collected multimodal EEG/ECG/EOG and fNIRS data simultaneously to develop algorithms to explore neuro-physiological correlates of drivers' mental states. Each subject performed simulated driving under two different conditions (well-rested and sleep-deprived) on different days. During the experiment, we used 68 electrodes for EEG/ECG/EOG and 8 channels for fNIRS recordings. We extracted the prominent features of each modality to distinguish between the well-rested and sleep-deprived conditions, and all multimodal features, except EOG, were combined to quantify mental fatigue during driving. Finally, a novel driving condition level (DCL) was proposed that distinguished clearly between the features of well-rested and sleep-deprived conditions. This proposed DCL measure may be applicable to real-time monitoring of the mental states of vehicle drivers. Further, the combination of methods based on each classifier yielded substantial improvements in the classification accuracy between these two conditions.
authors.affiliation: School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology Gwangju, South Korea.
authors.forename: Sangtae
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ahn
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Science and Engineering, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology Gwangju, South Korea.
authors.forename: Thien
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nguyen
authors.affiliation: School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology Gwangju, South Korea.
authors.forename: Hyojung
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Jang
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Science and Engineering, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology Gwangju, South Korea.
authors.forename: Jae G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology Gwangju, South Korea.
authors.forename: Sung C
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Jun
keywords: EEG/ECG/EOG/fNIRS; drivers' mental fatigue; driving condition level; multimodal integration; neuro-physiological correlates; simulated driving; sleep deprivation