EEG correlates of active visual search during simulated driving: An exploratory study

Brain responses to visual stimuli can provide information about visual recognition processes. Several studies have shown stimulus-dependent modulation of the evoked neural responses after gaze shifts (i.e. eye fixation related potentials, EFRP) depending on the relevance of the fixated object. However these studies are typically performed on still images under constrained conditions. Here we extend this approach to study overt visual attention during a simulated driving task. Simultaneous analysis of eye-tracking and electroencephalography data revealed similar patterns than those previously reported. However, natural visual exploration yielded shorter fixations, which imposes constraints in the analysis of the elicited brain responses. Nevertheless, we found significant differences between EFRPs corresponding to target objects or non-object stimuli. These results suggest the possibility of decoding such information during driving, allowing better understanding of how drivers process the environmental information