Department of Electrical, Electronic, and Information Engineering "Guglielmo Marconi", University of Bologna, Cesena, Italy.
Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Bologna, Forlì, Italy.
Sci Rep. 2022 Jun 29;12(1):10938. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-14747-0.
Successful aircraft cabin design depends on how the different stakeholders are involved since the first phases of product development. To predict passenger satisfaction prior to the manufacturing phase, human response was investigated in a Virtual Reality (VR) environment simulating a cabin aircraft. Subjective assessments of virtual designs have been collected via questionnaires, while the underlying neural mechanisms have been captured through electroencephalographic (EEG) data. In particular, we focused on the modulation of EEG alpha rhythm as a valuable marker of the brain's internal state and investigated which changes in alpha power and connectivity can be related to a different visual comfort perception by comparing groups with higher and lower comfort rates. Results show that alpha-band power decreased in occipital regions during subjects' immersion in the virtual cabin compared with the relaxation state, reflecting attention to the environment. Moreover, alpha-band power was modulated by comfort perception: lower comfort was associated with a lower alpha power compared to higher comfort. Further, alpha-band Granger connectivity shows top-down mechanisms in higher comfort participants, modulating attention and restoring partial relaxation. Present results contribute to understanding the role of alpha rhythm in visual comfort perception and demonstrate that VR and EEG represent promising tools to quantify human-environment interactions.
成功的飞机客舱设计取决于不同利益相关者在产品开发的早期阶段就如何参与进来。为了在制造阶段之前预测乘客满意度，我们在模拟机舱的虚拟现实 (VR) 环境中研究了人类的反应。通过问卷调查收集了对虚拟设计的主观评估，同时通过脑电图 (EEG) 数据捕获了潜在的神经机制。特别是，我们专注于 EEG 阿尔法节律的调制，作为大脑内部状态的有价值标志物，并通过比较舒适度较高和较低的组，研究了阿尔法功率和连通性的哪些变化可以与不同的视觉舒适度感知相关联。结果表明，与放松状态相比，受试者在虚拟客舱中沉浸时，枕部区域的阿尔法波段功率降低，反映了对环境的关注。此外，舒适度感知会调节阿尔法波段功率：与较高舒适度相比，较低舒适度与较低的阿尔法功率相关。此外，阿尔法波段的格兰杰连通性显示了较高舒适度参与者的自上而下的机制，调节注意力并恢复部分放松。目前的结果有助于理解阿尔法节律在视觉舒适度感知中的作用，并证明 VR 和 EEG 是量化人机交互的有前途的工具。
