Abstract
Maintaining vigilance is possibly the first requirement for surveillance tasks where personnel are faced with monotonous yet intensive monitoring tasks. Decrement in vigilance in such situations could result in dangerous consequences such as accidents, loss of life and system failure. In this paper, we investigate the possibility to enhance vigilance or sustained attention using “challenge integration,” a strategy that integrates a primary task with challenging stimuli. A primary surveillance task (identifying an intruder in a simulated factory environment) and a challenge stimulus (periods of rain obscuring the surveillance scene) were employed to test the changes in vigilance levels. The effect of integrating challenging events (resulting from artificially simulated rain) into the task were compared to the initial monotonous phase. EEG and eye tracking data is collected and analyzed for n = 12 subjects. Frontal midline theta power and frontal theta to parietal alpha power ratio which are used as measures of engagement and attention allocation show an increase due to challenge integration (p < 0.05 in each case). Relative delta band power of EEG also shows statistically significant suppression on the frontoparietal and occipital cortices due to challenge integration (p < 0.05). Saccade amplitude, saccade velocity and blink rate obtained from eye tracking data exhibit statistically significant changes during the challenge phase of the experiment (p < 0.05 in each case). From the correlation analysis between the statistically significant measures of eye tracking and EEG, we infer that saccade amplitude and saccade velocity decrease with vigilance decrement along with frontal midline theta and frontal theta to parietal alpha ratio. Conversely, blink rate and relative delta power increase with vigilance decrement. However, these measures exhibit a reverse trend when challenge stimulus appears in the task suggesting vigilance enhancement. Moreover, the mean reaction time is lower for the challenge integrated phase (RTmean = 3.65 ± 1.4s) compared to initial monotonous phase without challenge (RTmean = 4.6 ± 2.7s). Our work shows that vigilance level, as assessed by response of these vital signs, is enhanced by challenge integration.
Highlights
The term “cognitive enhancement” can be thought of as genetic, neuropharmaceutical, computer or direct neural interventions to extend the abilities of the brain (Bostrom and Sandberg, 2009)
Saccade amplitude and saccade velocity are positively correlated with frontal midline theta and frontal theta to parietal alpha ratio whereas blink rate is negatively correlated. These results suggest that saccade measures of eye tracking and frontal midline theta and frontal theta to parietal alpha ratio of EEG correlate positively with vigilance level while blink rate from eye tracking and relative delta power from EEG correlate negatively with vigilance level
We investigated the possibility of enhancing vigilance in a monotonous task using challenge integration
Summary
The term “cognitive enhancement” can be thought of as genetic, neuropharmaceutical, computer or direct neural interventions to extend the abilities of the brain (Bostrom and Sandberg, 2009). There have been reports of other nonconventional, more contemporary means of cognitive enhancers including pharmaceuticals, psychological interventions, molecular and gene therapy, transcranial magnetic stimulation, transcranial direct current stimulation and neural implants (Lynch, 2002; Fregni et al, 2005; Shirvalkar et al, 2006; Hallett, 2007; Sahakian and Morein-Zamir, 2007; Lucke et al, 2011). Several studies have investigated non invasive and non pharmacological approaches like training of certain cognitive abilities to enhance cognitive performance of individuals (Bamidis et al, 2014; Robert et al, 2014). Similar studies were conducted to enhance specific functions like visuomotor skills, working memory and attention (Klingberg et al, 2005; Jaeggi et al, 2008; Strenziok et al, 2014)
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