Benchmarking cEEGrid and Solid Gel-Based Electrodes to Classify Inattentional Deafness in a Flight Simulator.

Bertille Somon,Ludovic Darmet,Yasmina Giebeler,Frédéric Dehais

doi:10.3389/fnrgo.2021.802486

Abstract

Transfer from experiments in the laboratory to real-life tasks is challenging due notably to the inability to reproduce the complexity of multitasking dynamic everyday life situations in a standardized lab condition and to the bulkiness and invasiveness of recording systems preventing participants from moving freely and disturbing the environment. In this study, we used a motion flight simulator to induce inattentional deafness to auditory alarms, a cognitive difficulty arising in complex environments. In addition, we assessed the possibility of two low-density EEG systems a solid gel-based electrode Enobio (Neuroelectrics, Barcelona, Spain) and a gel-based cEEGrid (TMSi, Oldenzaal, Netherlands) to record and classify brain activity associated with inattentional deafness (misses vs. hits to odd sounds) with a small pool of expert participants. In addition to inducing inattentional deafness (missing auditory alarms) at much higher rates than with usual lab tasks (34.7% compared to the usual 5%), we observed typical inattentional deafness-related activity in the time domain but also in the frequency and time-frequency domains with both systems. Finally, a classifier based on Riemannian Geometry principles allowed us to obtain more than 70% of single-trial classification accuracy for both mobile EEG, and up to 71.5% for the cEEGrid (TMSi, Oldenzaal, Netherlands). These results open promising avenues toward detecting cognitive failures in real-life situations, such as real flight.

Highlights

Neuroergonomics is a recent field of research that promotes the use of portable brain imaging to investigate complex cognitive processes that are difficult to observe and measure under laboratory settings (Parasuraman, 2003; Dehais et al, 2020a; Gramann et al, 2021)
There were on average the same number of oddball trials in the visibility conditions [279 ± 13 in the normal visibility and 286 ± 8 in the low visibility condition—t(9) = −0.86; p = 0.41], and the same odd/standard rate [75.5 ± 0.65% standard in the normal visibility and 74.5 ± 0.32% in the low visibility condition— t(9) = 1.76; p = 0.11]
No significant difference was found in the miss rates between the normal visibility [33.1 ± 4.85%] and the low visibility [35.7 ± 6.48%; t(9) = −0.76; p = 0.47] conditions

Summary

Introduction

Neuroergonomics is a recent field of research that promotes the use of portable brain imaging to investigate complex cognitive processes that are difficult to observe and measure under laboratory settings (Parasuraman, 2003; Dehais et al, 2020a; Gramann et al, 2021). Functional MRI (fMRI) or Magneto-Encephalography (MEG) strongly constrain volunteers freedom of movement to prevent signal contamination They often require long acquisition processes and the presentation of Classification of Inattentional Deafness in a Flight Simulator basic stimuli in a repetitive fashion due to the low signal-tonoise ratio (SNR). These settings negatively affect participants’ motivation and render difficult the reproduction of critical real-life phenomena. To the authors’ knowledge, only one lab study managed to identify the neural correlates of inattentional deafness with fMRI (Durantin et al, 2017) To this aim, the authors placed their participants in a challenging aerobatic flight scenario using goggles and a joystick placed outside of the fMRI. They obtained a 35% auditory miss rate yielding them to discriminate evidences of the activation of an attentional bottleneck mechanism that, in return, inhibits the auditory cortex when sounds failed to reach an awareness

Methods

Results

Conclusion