Browsing by Author "Chuang, Chien-Yao"

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An EEG-based Subject- and Session-independent Drowsiness Detection
(2008-01-01)
Lin, Chin-Teng
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Pal, Nikhil R.
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Chuang, Chien-Yao
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Jung, Tzyy-Ping
;
Ko, Li-Wei
Monitoring and predicting human cognitive state and performance using physiological signals such as Electroencephalogram (EEG) have recently gained increasing attention in the fields of brain-computer interface and cognitive neuroscience. Most previous psychophysiological studies of cognitive changes have attempted to use the same model for all subjects. However, the relatively large individual variability in EEG dynamics relating to loss of alertness suggests that for many operators, group statistics cannot be used to accurately predict changes in cognitive states. Attempts have also been made to build a subject-dependent model for each individual based on his/her pilot data to account for individual variability. However, such methods assume the cross-session variability in EEG dynamics to be negligible, which could be problematic due to electrode displacements, environmental noises, and skin-electrode impedance. Here first we show that the EEG power in the alpha and theta bands are strongly correlated with changes in the subject's cognitive state reflected through his driving performance and hence his departure from alertness. Then under very mild and realistic assumptions we derive a model for the alert state of the person using EEG power in the alpha and theta bands. We demonstrate that deviations (computed by Mahalanobis distance) of the EEG power in the alpha and theta bands from the corresponding alert models are correlated to the changes in the driving performance. Finally, for detection of drowsiness we use a linear combination of deviations of the EEG power in the alpha band and theta band from the respective alert models that best correlates with subject's changing level of alertness, indexed by subject's behavioral response in the driving task. This approach could lead to a practical system for noninvasive monitoring of the cognitive state of human operators in attention-critical settings.
EEG-Based Subject- and Session-independent Drowsiness Detection: An Unsupervised Approach
(2008)
Pal, Nikhil R.
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Chuang, Chien-Yao
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Ko, Li-Wei
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Chao, Chih-Feng
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Jung, Tzyy-Ping
Monitoring and prediction of changes in the human cognitive states, such as alertness and drowsiness, using physiological signals are very important for driver's safety. Typically, physiological studies on real-time detection of drowsiness usually use the same model for all subjects. However, the relatively large individual variability in EEG dynamics relating to loss of alertness implies that for many subjects, group statistics may not be useful to accurately predict changes in cognitive states. Researchers have attempted to build subject-dependent models based on his/her pilot data to account for individual variability. Such approaches cannot account for the cross-session variability in EEG dynamics, which may cause problems due to various reasons including electrode displacements, environmental noises, and skin-electrode impedance. Hence, we propose an unsupervised subject- and session-independent approach for detection departure from alertness in this study. Experimental results showed that the EEG power in the alpha-band (as well as in the theta-band) is highly correlated with changes in the subject's cognitive state with respect to drowsiness as reflected through his driving performance. This approach being an unsupervised and session-independent one could be used to develop a useful system for noninvasive monitoring of the cognitive state of human operators in attention-critical settings. Copyright (C) 2008 Nikhil R. Pal et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.