Ricerc@Sapienza

Car driving is considered a very complex activity, consisting of different concomitant tasks and subtasks, thus it is crucial to understand the impact of different factors, such as road complexity, traffic, dashboard devices, and external events on the driver’s behavior and performance. For this reason, in particular situations the cognitive demand experienced by the driver could be very high, inducing an excessive experienced mental workload and consequently an increasing of error commission probability.

Car driving is considered a very complex activity, consisting of different main tasks and subtasks. For this reason, in particular situations the cognitive demand on the driver can be very high, and this large mental workload decreases performance and increases the probability of error commission. In this preliminary study a workload index based on electroencephalography (EEG), i.e., brain activity of eight drivers in real traffic conditions, is validated.

Car driving is a complex activity, consisting of an integrated multi-task behavior and requiring different interrelated skills. Over the last years, the number of Advanced Driver Assistance systems integrated into cars has grown exponentially. So it is very important to evaluate the interaction between these devices and drivers in order to study if they can represent an additional source of driving-related distraction.