A Preliminary Study on Driver's Stress Index Using a New Method Based on Differential Skin Temperature Measurement

Abstract

Prolonged periods of driving in monotonous situations may lower a driver's activation state as well as increasing their stress level due to the compulsion to maintain safe driving, which may result in an increased risk of a traffic accident. There is therefore an opportunity for technological assessment of driver physiological status to be applied in-car, hopefully reducing the incidence of potentially dangerous situations. As part of our long-term aim to develop such a system, we describe here the investigation of differential skin temperature measurement as a possible marker of a driver's stress level. 10 healthy male subjects were studied, under environment-controlled conditions, whilst being subjected to simulated monotonous travel at constant speed on a test-course. We acquired measurements of relevant physiological variables, including truncal and peripheral skin temperatures (T(s)), beat-by-beat blood pressure (BP), cardiac output (CO), total peripheral resistance (TPR), and normalized pulse volume (NPV) used as an indicator of local peripheral vascular tone. We then investigated the driver's reactivity in terms of cardiovascular haemodynamics and skin temperatures. We found that the simulated monotonous driving produced a gradual drop in peripheral T(s) following the driving stress, which, through interpretation of the TPR and NPV recordings, could be explained by peripheral sympathetic activation. On the other hand, the truncal T(s) was not influenced by the stress. These findings lead us to suggest that truncal-peripheral differential T(s) might be used as a possible index indicative of the driver's stress.

Employing consumer electronic devices in physiological and emotional evaluation of common driving activities

“…Analysis of these indicators revealed some patterns. For instance, throughout the whole duration of driving task PST was monotonically decreasing (see Figure 4c); similar pattern was observed by Yamakoshi et al in [19]. In contrast, GSR did not counteract pattern observed in PST (see Figure 4a), but instead was found to strongly correlate to participants' subjective overall workload ratings.…”

Versatile Psychophysiological Potencies of Essential Oils, when Seen as a Function of Behavioral Task Assigned to the Participants after Inhalation

“…Emotional excitement or apprehension is known to induce a slight increase in human skin temperature (Elam & Wallin, 1987;Oka et al, 2001Oka et al, , 2008Yamakoshi et al, 2007;Ziegler & Cash, 1938). Although several authors have demonstrated stress-induced skin temperature changes, the mechanisms by which odorants induce such changes are unknown.…”

“…If feelings of excitement or apprehension induce slight increases in skin temperature (Elam & Wallin, 1987;Oka et al, 2001Oka et al, , 2008Yamakoshi et al, 2007;Ziegler & Cash, 1938), it is reasonable to assume that essential oils can be regarded as having either distressing/agitating properties when associated with increases in skin temperature or relaxing/sedating properties when associated with decreases in skin temperature. Mehrabian and Russell (1974) constructed a set of verbal texts describing different situations, and a scale for rating these texts (the Semantic Differential Scale).…”

Relationship between Mood Change, Odor and Its Psychophysiological Responses in Humans in Terms of the Sensory Evaluation Spectrum

“…Conclusively, we found that multi-channel skin thermometer data might complement the statistical defects of the relevant sensory spectra. Emotional excitement or apprehension is known to induce a slight increase in skin temperature (Elam & Wallin, 1987;Oka et al, 2001Oka et al, , 2008Yamakoshi et al, 2007;Ziegler & Cash, 1938). As the perception of and response to odors are intimately related to both emotional expression and genesis of emotion, skin temperature changes can serve as an effective index for the study of the relationship between odor and its emotional and physiological responses in humans.…”