Examining the influence of decorated sidewaall in road tunnels using fMRI technology

Abstract

In long tunnels where the driving environment is boring and monotonous, the speed perception of drivers is usually compromised. Although researchers have conducted a host of studies on driving safety in tunnels and found out that the sidewall environment was a significant factor that affected driver behavior inside tunnels, little is known regarding the mechanism of how the tunnel sidewall impacts the drivers, especially which regions of neural system are related to the impact of the sidewall. To fill this gap, the current study aims at examining the influence of the decorated tunnel sidewall on drivers’ brain activity using fMRI. To this end, an experiment was conducted where thirty-five subjects are recruited. The experiment was conducted using fMRI under two tunnel scenarios: empty sidewall and decorated sidewall. The video of the driving scene was taken in the real driving environment of a tunnel and presented by a projector outside the operating room. The results showed that the fusiform gyrus and precuneus were more activated in tunnels with the decorated sidewall than that with an empty sidewall. These regions are known to be responsible for visual recognition, visual processing and visual spatial functions. Therefore, it indicates that the presence of decorated sidewall provides drivers with a better spatial and speed perception and could help reduce accidents associated with speed judgment. The differences between driver groups were also explored and the finding revealed that the activation level of superior frontal gyrus is different between male and female drivers, which indicated that the same sidewall decoration has different effect between driver groups.