Konferens: 2nd international conference on driver distraction and inattention, 2011, Gothenburg, Sweden

In order to investigate ecologically robust parameters in the EEG as correlates of driver attentional shift, we conducted a real road driving study with N=40 participants which performed two different secondary tasks (i.e. visuomotor and auditory). Due to safety considerations, adaptive cruise control was activated all the time and participants were not allowed to overtake. The visuomotor task consisted of a Landolt-rings task presented on an extra display. In the auditory task, the participants were instructed to detect predefined words during the presentation of an audio book and had to answer a question with regard to the content at the end of every chapter. In the EEG, alpha spindles show a significantly higher occurrence rate during the auditory secondary task and a significantly lower rate during the visuomotor secondary task as compared to driving only. For alpha spindle duration significantly shorter alpha spindles during the visuomotor secondary task as compared to the auditory secondary task and to driving only could be found. Effects on alpha spindle rate and duration while performing secondary tasks on top of the driving task result from attentional shift according to the task modality. The results are consistent with the assumption that alpha spindles indicate active inhibition of visual information processing. As compared to alpha band power, the measures of alpha spindle rate and alpha spindle duration were less prone to artifacts and the effects were more pronounced, 2 which allows for a more accurate classification of different attentiveness levels while driving in real traffic.