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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Virtual Real.
Sec. Virtual Reality and Human Behaviour
Volume 5 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/frvir.2024.1433829

EEG oscillatory signatures of increased cognitive control at intersections: A virtual reality driving simulation

Provisionally accepted
Ulrike Senftleben Ulrike Senftleben 1*Klaus Kessler Klaus Kessler 2,3
  • 1 Technical University Dresden, Dresden, Germany
  • 2 University College Dublin, Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland
  • 3 Aston University, Birmingham, West Midlands, United Kingdom

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Intersections are particularly complex traffic situations and are often the scene of accidents. Driver behaviour and decision-making might be affected by specific factors such as the right of way, traffic volume, and the occurrence of a critical event directly before the intersection. Here, we developed a new driving scenario to test the impact of these factors in virtual reality using a fully immersive head-mounted display. Participants had to navigate through a series of intersections to reach their target destination. We recorded their driving behaviour as well as their brain activity using electroencephalography. Our results showed that participants proactively engaged cognitive control processes when approaching an intersection with high traffic volume and when reacting to a critical event, as indexed by increased theta power. We did not find differences for right of way. We further discuss advantages and potential challenges of a VR-based approach to driving simulations.

    Keywords: US: conceptualization, investigation, Formal analysis, Data curation, methodology, project administration, visualization, Writing-original draft

    Received: 16 May 2024; Accepted: 15 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Senftleben and Kessler. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Ulrike Senftleben, Technical University Dresden, Dresden, Germany

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.