Exploring the Effects of Emotional Sensory Stimuli on Modulating Driver Fatigue via EEG-based Spatial-Temporal Dynamic Analysis

Relieving driver fatigue is crucial for ensuring traffic safety. Existing research lacks an exploration of the feasibility and effectiveness of using implicit emotion modulation methods to alleviate driver fatigue. In this study, the effects of Emotional Sensory (olfactory or olfactory-auditory) Stimuli (ESS) on modulating driver fatigue are explored, and the underlying neural mechanisms are analyzed based on the spatio-temporal dynamic patterns of Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals. First, a real-world driver fatigue modulation experiment based on ESS was designed to record EEG signals. Second, brain activation patterns under various ESS were investigated by analyzing brain functional networks. Furthermore, dynamic changes in fatigue-related features were analyzed to examine the strength and persistence of driver fatigue modulation for each ESS. Finally, a fatigue similarity measure method was adopted to quantify the fatigue recovery level under ESS in a more intuitive manner. The results demonstrate that the mint odor-High-Arousal-Low-Valence (HALV) music stimulus exhibits the best driver fatigue modulation effects, and is superior to singular olfactory stimuli. Furthermore, dynamic brain functional connectivity analysis reveals that effective driver fatigue modulation tends to be strongly synchronized in the frontal and parietal lobes. The optimal olfactory-auditory mixed stimuli restores driver fatigue to the level 58-60[Formula: see text]min ago. Our findings shed light on the dynamic characterization of functional connectivity during driver fatigue modulation and demonstrate the potential of using ESS as a reliable implicit tool for modulating driver fatigue.