Abstract
For reasons of convenience and safety, it is important to assess the drivers´
workload while using in-vehicle devices. Recently, we proposed a new psycho-physiological
measure for assessing drivers´ attention: eye-fixation-related-potential (EFRP). EFRP is a
kind of event-related-brain potential (it was made of brain waves (EEG) and the
electrooculographic (EOG)) measurable in normal driving. In the present study, we
manipulated the cars´ navigation system and measured the affect on drivers attention by
measuring EFRPs.
There were two tasks: a voice-activated task (the drivers manipulated the navigation system
via voice) and a manual task (the drivers manipulated the navigation system by hand). The
results showed that the amplitude of P100 component of EFRP during simulated and actual
driving decreased greatly with the manual task when compared to the voice-activated task.
This finding implies that drivers can manipulate in-vehicle systems more safely by the voice-activated
devices than the manual devices.
Keywords - EEG, EOG, EFRP, Driver´s state, Driving simulator