Abstract
Many potential hazards are encountered during daily driving in mixed traffic situations, and the anticipatory activity of a driver to a hazard is one of the key factors in many crashes. In a previous study using eye-tracking data, it was reliably recognized whether the eyes of a driver had become fixated or pursued hazard cues. A limitation of using eye-tracking data is that it cannot be identified whether the anticipatory activity of a driver to hazards has been activated. This study aimed to propose a method to recognize whether the psychological anticipation of a driver had been activated by a hazard cue using electroencephalogram (EEG) signals as input. Thirty-six drivers participated in a simulated driving task designed according to a standard psychological anticipatory study paradigm. Power spectral density (PSD) features were extracted from raw EEG data, and feature dimensions were reduced by principal component analysis (PCA). The results showed that when a driver detected a hazard cue, the alpha band immediately decreased, and the beta band increased approximately 300 ms after the cue appeared. Based on performance evaluation of the support vector machine (SVM), k-nearest neighbor (KNN) method, and linear discriminant analysis (LDA), SVM could detect the anticipatory activity of the driver to a potential hazard in a timely manner with an accuracy of 81%. The findings demonstrated that the hazard anticipatory activity of a driver could be recognized with EEG data as input.
Highlights
In daily driving, driver anticipation of on-road hazards that could cause a crash has been called hazard perception
The aim of this study was to propose a method that could be used to recognize whether a driver could anticipate a potential hazard upon detecting a hazard cue
The data collected from simulated driving experiments (36 drivers) included those drivers who anticipated hazards, which was operationally assessed by the risk-avoiding actions executed before the target appeared
Summary
Driver anticipation of on-road hazards that could cause a crash has been called hazard perception. Hazard perception is related to whether a driver can detect a potential hazard and prepare for it, and a traffic report revealed that approximately 40% of traffic accidents were caused by the lack of anticipation of potential hazards or unnoticed hazard cues [3]. Accelerating the learning process of hazard perception via assessment and training is one major strategy to improve traffic safety. Typical conceptualization of situation awareness might help us more effectively design hazard-perception skill tests and training driving styles [4], [5]. Knowledge of this hazardperception psychological process is cutting-edge research in the road safety field
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