Driving attention amount determination device, method, and computer program

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9117124-B2
Application number	US-201414247550-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 8, 2014
Priority date	Oct 15, 2009
Publication date	Aug 25, 2015
Grant date	Aug 25, 2015

Abstract

A driving attention amount determination apparatus includes: an electroencephalogram measurement section for measuring an electroencephalogram signal of a driver; a central stimulation presentation section for presenting a visual stimulation in a central visual field of the driver; a peripheral stimulation presentation section for presenting a visual stimulation in a peripheral visual field of the driver; a threshold setting section for setting a determination threshold for attention amount determination from a distribution of amplitude of an event-related potential in the electroencephalogram signal based on a point of presenting the stimulation in the central visual field as a starting point; and an attention amount determination section for determining an attention amount through a comparison between the determination threshold and an amplitude of an event-related potential in the electroencephalogram signal based on a point of presenting the stimulation in the peripheral visual field as a starting point.

First claim

What is claimed:

1. A driving attention amount determination apparatus comprising:
an imaging section for imaging a vehicle front;
a stimulation detection section for detecting a stimulation contained in a video captured by the imaging section and a time point of occurrence of the stimulation, and detecting whether a position of occurrence of the stimulation in the video is in a central visual region or a peripheral visual region of a driver;
an electroencephalogram measurement section for measuring an electroencephalogram signal of the driver;
a threshold setting section for setting a determination threshold for attention amount determination from a distribution of amplitude of an event-related potential in the electroencephalogram signal based on a point of presenting a stimulation in the central visual region as a starting point; and
an attention amount determination section for determining an amount of attention through a comparison between the determination threshold and an amplitude of an event-related potential in the electroencephalogram signal based on a point of presenting a stimulation in the peripheral visual region as a starting point.

2. The driving attention amount determination apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising a line-of-sight measurement section for measuring a line of sight of the driver, wherein
the stimulation detection section detects whether the stimulation is contained in the central visual region or the peripheral visual region of the driver in accordance with the line of sight of the driver as detected by the line-of-sight measurement section at the time point of occurrence of the stimulation.

3. The driving attention amount determination apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising:
a storage section for storing P300 amplitudes of an event-related potential of the driver generated by the driver in the past in response to stimulations presented by the peripheral stimulation presentation section; and
a start threshold setting section for extracting two peaks contained in the stored distribution of P300 amplitudes, and setting the determination threshold by utilizing the two peaks.

4. The driving attention amount determination apparatus of claim 3 , wherein the start threshold setting section sets a median of the two peaks as the determination threshold.

5. A method of driving attention amount determination, comprising:
an electroencephalogram measurement step of measuring an electroencephalogram signal of a driver;
a central stimulation presenting step of presenting a visual stimulation in a central visual field of the driver;
a peripheral stimulation presenting step of presenting a visual stimulation in a peripheral visual field of the driver;
a threshold setting step of setting a determination threshold for attention amount determination from a distribution of amplitude of an event-related potential in the electroencephalogram signal based on a point of presenting the stimulation in the central visual field as a starting point; and
an attention amount determining step of determining an amount of attention through a comparison between the determination threshold and an amplitude of an event-related potential in the electroencephalogram signal based on a point of presenting the stimulation in the peripheral visual field as a starting point.

6. The method of driving attention amount determination of claim 5 , wherein,
the amplitude of an event-related potential based on the point of presenting the stimulation in the central visual field as a starting point is an amplitude of a P300 which is a positive component in a zone from 300 milliseconds to 600 milliseconds based on a point of presenting a visual stimulation in the central visual field as a starting point; and
the amplitude of an event-related potential based on the point of presenting the stimulation in the peripheral visual field as a starting point is an amplitude of a P300 which is a positive component in a zone from 300 milliseconds to 600 milliseconds based on a point of presenting a visual stimulation in the peripheral visual field as a starting point.

7. The method of driving attention amount determination of claim 5 , wherein,
the attention amount determining step compares the determination threshold and the amplitude value of an event-related potential based on the point of presenting the stimulation in the peripheral visual field as a starting point, and
if the amplitude value is equal to or greater than the determination threshold, determines that the amount of attention is high, and
if the amplitude value is smaller than the determination threshold, determines that the amount of attention is low.

8. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing a computer program to be executed by a computer, for determining an amount of attention,
the computer program causing the computer to execute:
a step of receiving a measured electroencephalogram signal of a driver;
a central stimulation presenting step of presenting a visual stimulation in a central visual field of the driver;
a peripheral stimulation presenting step of presenting a visual stimulation in a peripheral visual field of the driver;
a threshold setting step of setting a determination threshold for attention amount determination from a distribution of amplitude of an event-related potential in the electroencephalogram signal based on a point of presenting the stimulation in the central visual field as a starting point; and
an attention amount determining step of determining an amount of attention through a comparison between the determination threshold and an amplitude of an event-related potential in the electroencephalogram signal based on a point of presenting the stimulation in the peripheral visual field as a starting point.

9. A driving attention amount determination apparatus for receiving data of a stimulation contained in a video of a vehicle front captured by an imaging section, data of a time point of occurrence of the stimulation, and data of a result of detection as to whether a position of occurrence of the stimulation in the video is in a central visual region or a peripheral visual region of a driver, the driving attention amount determination apparatus comprising:
a threshold setting section for setting a determination threshold for attention amount determination from a distribution of amplitude of an event-related potential in an electroencephalogram signal based on a point of presenting a stimulation in the central visual region as a starting point, the electroencephalogram signal being measured by an electroencephalogram measurement section for measuring an electroencephalogram signal; and
an attention amount determination section for determining an amount of attention through a comparison between the determination threshold and an amplitude of an event-related potential in the electroencephalogram signal based on a point of presenting a stimulation in the peripheral visual region as a starting point.

Assignees

• Panasonic Corp
• Panasonic Ip Man Co Ltd

Inventors

• Terada Yoshihisa
• Morikawa Koji

Classifications

• G08B21/02

  Alarms for ensuring the safety of persons · CPC title

• A61B5/04842

  Human Necessities · mapped topic

• G01B11/022

  by means of tv-camera scanning · CPC title

• A61B5/0006 Primary

  ECG or EEG signals · CPC title

• G06K9/00845 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic