THE IMPACT OF ROAD COMPLEXITYON THE PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGICAL LOAD EXPERIENCED BY CAR DRIVERS USING ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHY (EEG) MEASUREMENT OF BRAINWAVES

Abstract

A driver’s mental and physical states while driving on hazardous roads significantly determine the incident of traffic accident. The objectives of this paper are to analyze the impact of road complexity on the psychophysiological load experienced by drivers through the use of Electroencephalography (EEG). Three conditions were examined through driving simulation, namely motorway, rural road, and city road. The data were collected from three respondents (drivers) who had different driving experiences, including < 3 years, 3 to 5 years, and > 5 years. Besides, each respondent would go through two tests with different situations: a normal situation and interfered situation (noises). The tool used was Emotive EPOC neuroheadset with 5 channels (electrode) which represent brain parts, such as the frontal (AF3 and AF4), temporal (T7 and T8), and parietal/occipital Pz. The simulation test results show that the beta signal for the motorway road situation in the occipital lobe, which functioned as visual, is more dominant compared to electrodes in other parts. Meanwhile, data from the rural road and the city road indicate a strong signal of emotions and visuals. In addition, based on the metrics performance result, the drivers’ level of stress reached its highest on the city road, as much as 45, followed by the rural road = 44 and the motorway = 42. While for the concentration index, the city road achieved 47, the rural road = 50 and the motorway = 53. EEG can be used as the basis for drivers performance assessment within different road situations so that the alert system for drivers can be engineered better.