Highlights We examine how a passenger affects a sleepy driver's prefrontal activity using NIRS. Sleepiness has no effect on participants in the no-passenger group. Sleepy participants show decreased right prefrontal activity in with-passenger group. NIRS provides a new possibility to study driver's mental state directly in the brain.

    Abstract The present study aimed to examine how a passenger affects the sleepiness effect (awake vs. sleepy) on an individual's prefrontal activation during a simulated driving-game task using a wireless portable near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) device. Participants drove from start to goal along default routes either solely (no-passenger group) or with a friend sitting beside him/her as a passenger (with-passenger group). Sleepiness level was assessed by a five-item scale questionnaire. In the no-passenger group, there were no performance and activation differences between the sleepy and awake participants. In the with-passenger group, by contrast, the sleepy participants showed more errors and lower activations in their right prefrontal cortex than the awake participants. These results suggest that a passenger has little effect on awake participants, but may weaken the sleepy participants’ vigilance and/or their cognitive abilities of action control. Practically, the present study demonstrates that NIRS may provide us a new possibility to monitor and examine the driver's mental states in the brain.


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    Title :

    A passenger reduces sleepy driver's activation in the right prefrontal cortex: A laboratory study using near-infrared spectroscopy


    Contributors:
    Liu, Tao (author) / Liu, Yan (author) / He, Wei (author) / He, Wuming (author) / Yu, Xide (author) / Guo, Siyuan (author) / Zhang, Guiping (author)

    Published in:

    Publication date :

    2016-01-25


    Size :

    4 pages




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English