Investigating the Cognitive Response of Brake Lights in Initiating Braking Action Using EEG

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Palaniappan, Ramaswamy, Mouli, Surej, Bowman, Howard, McLoughlin, Ian
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Palaniappan, Ramaswamy
Mouli, Surej
Bowman, Howard
McLoughlin, Ian
author_facet Palaniappan, Ramaswamy
Mouli, Surej
Bowman, Howard
McLoughlin, Ian
contents Half of all road accidents result from either lack of driver attention or from maintaining insufficient separation between vehicles. Collision from the rear, in particular, has been identified as the most common class of accident in the UK, and its influencing factors have been widely studied for many years. Rear-mounted stop lamps, illuminated when braking, are the primary mechanism to alert following drivers to the need to reduce speed or brake. This paper develops a novel brain response approach to measuring subject reaction to different brake light designs. A variety of off-the-shelf brake light assemblies are tested in a physical simulated driving environment to assess the cognitive reaction times of 22 subjects. Eight pairs of LED-based and two pairs of incandescent bulb-based brake light assemblies are used and electroencephalogram (EEG) data recorded. Channel Pz is utilised to extract the P3 component evoked during the decision making process that occurs in the brain when a participant decides to lift their foot from the accelerator and depress the brake. EEG analysis shows that both incandescent bulb-based lights are statistically slower to evoke cognitive responses than all tested LED-based lights. Between the LED designs, differences are evident, but not statistically significant, attributed to the significant amount of movement artifact in the EEG signal.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_03274
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Investigating the Cognitive Response of Brake Lights in Initiating Braking Action Using EEG
Palaniappan, Ramaswamy
Mouli, Surej
Bowman, Howard
McLoughlin, Ian
Signal Processing
Emerging Technologies
Human-Computer Interaction
Information Retrieval
Half of all road accidents result from either lack of driver attention or from maintaining insufficient separation between vehicles. Collision from the rear, in particular, has been identified as the most common class of accident in the UK, and its influencing factors have been widely studied for many years. Rear-mounted stop lamps, illuminated when braking, are the primary mechanism to alert following drivers to the need to reduce speed or brake. This paper develops a novel brain response approach to measuring subject reaction to different brake light designs. A variety of off-the-shelf brake light assemblies are tested in a physical simulated driving environment to assess the cognitive reaction times of 22 subjects. Eight pairs of LED-based and two pairs of incandescent bulb-based brake light assemblies are used and electroencephalogram (EEG) data recorded. Channel Pz is utilised to extract the P3 component evoked during the decision making process that occurs in the brain when a participant decides to lift their foot from the accelerator and depress the brake. EEG analysis shows that both incandescent bulb-based lights are statistically slower to evoke cognitive responses than all tested LED-based lights. Between the LED designs, differences are evident, but not statistically significant, attributed to the significant amount of movement artifact in the EEG signal.
title Investigating the Cognitive Response of Brake Lights in Initiating Braking Action Using EEG
topic Signal Processing
Emerging Technologies
Human-Computer Interaction
Information Retrieval
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.03274