Abstract

Performance decrement associated with sleep deprivation is a leading contributor to traffic accidents and fatalities. While current research has focused on eye blink parameters as physiological indicators of driver drowsiness, little is understood of how gaze behaviour alters as a result of sleep deprivation. In particular, the effect of sleep deprivation on gaze entropy has not been previously examined. In this randomised, repeated measures study, 9 (4 male, 5 female) healthy participants completed two driving sessions in a fully instrumented vehicle (1 after a night of sleep deprivation and 1 after normal sleep) on a closed track, during which eye movement activity and lane departure events were recorded. Following sleep deprivation, the rate of fixations reduced while blink rate and duration as well as saccade amplitude increased. In addition, stationary and transition entropy of gaze also increased following sleep deprivation as well as with amount of time driven. An increase in stationary gaze entropy in particular was associated with higher odds of a lane departure event occurrence. These results highlight how fatigue induced by sleep deprivation and time-on-task effects can impair drivers’ visual awareness through disruption of gaze distribution and scanning patterns.

Details

Title
Stationary gaze entropy predicts lane departure events in sleep-deprived drivers
Author
Shiferaw, Brook A 1 ; Downey, Luke A 2 ; Westlake, Justine 3 ; Stevens, Bronwyn 3 ; Rajaratnam, Shantha M W 4 ; Berlowitz, David J 5   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Swann, Phillip 6 ; Howard, Mark E 7 

1  Centre for Human Psychopharmacology, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Australia 
2  Centre for Human Psychopharmacology, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Australia; Institute for Breathing and Sleep, Austin Health, Melbourne, Australia 
3  Institute for Breathing and Sleep, Austin Health, Melbourne, Australia 
4  Monash Institute of Cognitive and Clinical Neurosciences and School of Psychological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia 
5  Institute for Breathing and Sleep, Austin Health, Melbourne, Australia; University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia 
6  VicRoads, Kew, Australia 
7  Institute for Breathing and Sleep, Austin Health, Melbourne, Australia; Monash Institute of Cognitive and Clinical Neurosciences and School of Psychological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia; University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia 
Pages
1-10
Publication year
2018
Publication date
Feb 2018
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20452322
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-20588-7
ProQuest document ID
1993599188
Copyright
© 2018. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.