Gouraud Jonas, Delorme Arnaud, Berberian Bruno
Systems Control and Flight Dynamics Department, Office National d'Etudes et de Recherche Aérospatiales, Salon de Provence, France.
Center of Research on Brain and Cognition (UMR 5549), Centre National de Recherche Scientifique, Toulouse, France.
Front Neuroergon. 2021 Apr 1;2:625343. doi: 10.3389/fnrgo.2021.625343. eCollection 2021.
The phenomenon of mind wandering (MW), as a family of experiences related to internally directed cognition, heavily influences vigilance evolution. In particular, humans in teleoperations monitoring partially automated fleet before assuming manual control whenever necessary may see their attention drift due to internal sources; as such, it could play an important role in the emergence of out-of-the-loop (OOTL) situations and associated performance problems. To follow, quantify, and mitigate this phenomenon, electroencephalogram (EEG) systems already demonstrated robust results. As MW creates an attentional decoupling, both ERPs and brain oscillations are impacted. However, the factors influencing these markers in complex environments are still not fully understood. In this paper, we specifically addressed the possibility of gradual emergence of attentional decoupling and the differences created by the sensory modality used to convey targets. Eighteen participants were asked to (1) supervise an automated drone performing an obstacle avoidance task (visual task) and (2) respond to infrequent beeps as fast as possible (auditory task). We measured event-related potentials and alpha waves through EEG. We also added a 40-Hz amplitude modulated brown noise to evoke steady-state auditory response (ASSR). Reported MW episodes were categorized between task-related and task-unrelated episodes. We found that N1 ERP component elicited by beeps had lower amplitude during task-unrelated MW, whereas P3 component had higher amplitude during task-related MW, compared with other attentional states. Focusing on parieto-occipital regions, alpha-wave activity was higher during task-unrelated MW compared with others. These results support the decoupling hypothesis for task-unrelated MW but not task-related MW, highlighting possible variations in the "depth" of decoupling depending on MW episodes. Finally, we found no influence of attentional states on ASSR amplitude. We discuss possible reasons explaining why. Results underline both the ability of EEG to track and study MW in laboratory tasks mimicking ecological environments, as well as the complex influence of perceptual decoupling on operators' behavior and, in particular, EEG measures.
作为一系列与内部导向认知相关的体验,思维游荡(MW)现象对警觉性进化有着重大影响。特别是,在远程操作中监控部分自动化机群的人员,在必要时进行手动控制之前,可能会因内部因素导致注意力分散;因此,它可能在“脱环”(OOTL)情况的出现及相关性能问题中发挥重要作用。为了追踪、量化和缓解这一现象,脑电图(EEG)系统已显示出可靠的结果。由于思维游荡会导致注意力解耦,事件相关电位(ERP)和脑振荡都会受到影响。然而,在复杂环境中影响这些指标的因素仍未完全明了。在本文中,我们专门探讨了注意力解耦逐渐出现的可能性,以及用于传达目标的感觉模态所产生的差异。18名参与者被要求:(1)监督执行避障任务的自动无人机(视觉任务);(2)尽可能快地对不频繁的蜂鸣声做出反应(听觉任务)。我们通过脑电图测量了事件相关电位和阿尔法波。我们还添加了40赫兹调幅棕色噪声以诱发稳态听觉反应(ASSR)。报告的思维游荡事件被分为与任务相关和与任务无关的事件。我们发现,与其他注意力状态相比,在与任务无关的思维游荡期间,蜂鸣声诱发的N1 ERP成分振幅较低,而在与任务相关的思维游荡期间,P3成分振幅较高。聚焦于顶枕区域,与其他状态相比,在与任务无关的思维游荡期间阿尔法波活动更高。这些结果支持了与任务无关的思维游荡的解耦假说,但不支持与任务相关的思维游荡,突出了根据思维游荡事件,解耦“深度”可能存在的差异。最后,我们发现注意力状态对ASSR振幅没有影响。我们讨论了可能的原因。结果强调了脑电图在模拟生态环境的实验室任务中追踪和研究思维游荡的能力,以及感知解耦对操作员行为,特别是对脑电图测量的复杂影响。