Neurophysiological Vigilance Characterisation and Assessment: Laboratory and Realistic Validations Involving Professional Air Traffic Controllers

Abstract

Vigilance degradation usually causes significant performance decrement. It is also considered the major factor causing the out-of-the-loop phenomenon (OOTL) occurrence. OOTL is strongly related to a high level of automation in operative contexts such as the Air Traffic Management (ATM), and it could lead to a negative impact on the Air Traffic Controllers’ (ATCOs) engagement. As a consequence, being able to monitor the ATCOs’ vigilance would be very important to prevent risky situations. In this context, the present study aimed to characterise and assess the vigilance level by using electroencephalographic (EEG) measures. The first study, involving 13 participants in laboratory settings allowed to find out the neurophysiological features mostly related to vigilance decrements. Those results were also confirmed under realistic ATM settings recruiting 10 professional ATCOs. The results demonstrated that (i) there was a significant performance decrement related to vigilance reduction; (ii) there were no substantial differences between the identified neurophysiological features in controlled and ecological settings, and the EEG-channel configuration defined in laboratory was able to discriminate and classify vigilance changes in ATCOs’ vigilance with high accuracy (up to 84%); (iii) the derived two EEG-channel configuration was able to assess vigilance variations reporting only slight accuracy reduction.

EEG Theta Power Activity Reflects Workload among Army Combat Drivers: An Experimental Study

“…This would especially occur over frontal regions [44] but also on the overall scalp [42]. Classical mental workload studies have frequently used stationary tasks (e.g., [45,46]) or sophisticated EEG systems (up to 115 electrodes) to monitor EEG activity for long periods of time (i.e., large number of repetitions of a given event) (e.g., [47]). However, in situations in which a higher ecological validity is desired, it is necessary to implement easy-to-use solutions (e.g., [48]) that do not interfere with operator behavior and undermine operational safety.…”

Cognitive Vigilance Enhancement Using Audio Stimulation of Pure Tone at 250 Hz

“…Vigilance, as part of the attentional networks model, is responsible for maintaining the required state of activation to facilitate the functioning of the attentional system, in order to appropriately detect and quickly react to stimuli in the environment [2], [3]. Deterioration in vigilant attention is the primary risk factor for accidents and injury when driving a vehicle, flying an aircraft, operating production line machinery and medical operations [4], [5], [6].…”

The Low-Frequency Fluctuation of Trial-by-Trial Frontal Theta Activity and Its Correlation With Reaction-Time Variability in Sustained Attention

“…It refers to focusing on a certain task for a long period of time ( Posner et al, 2014 ). Many occupations in our daily lives require a high level of sustained attention, e.g., driving vehicles, industrial control, and air traffic control ( Aricò et al, 2016 ; Reinerman-Jones et al, 2016 ; Sebastiani et al, 2020 ). Declined sustained attention was documented in studies of several physiological states, e.g., alcoholism ( Coles et al, 2002 ), sleep deprivation ( Gunzelmann et al, 2009 ), and fatigue ( Gunzelmann et al, 2011 ).…”