Ecological measures of cognitive impairments in aeronautics: theory and application

The objective of this chapter is to focus on the use of unobtrusive easy-to-use electrophysiological systems for neuroergonomic research. In a first section, we describe the challenges and limits related to the use of such systems. Electrode localization and signal processing solutions are then proposed to overcome some of the raised issues. In the second section, we explore the feasibility to measure pilots' auditory attention in a flight simulator using an unobtrusive EEG system [1] on a small number of participants. This study aims at measuring the cerebral activity associated with inattentional deafness in an ecological context with varying degrees of workload. The end goal was to assess the possibilities of such a system to be transferred to real-flight conditions. Our results illustrate this paradox: we were able to reproduce some of the results observed in the literature, but we also faced difficulties in terms of signal processing and measure identifications. We show that despite the lower signal-to-noise ratio observed with this kind of devices, we are able to detect event-related potentials (ERPs) and frequency features. In the last part, we discuss our results with regards to neuroadaptive systems challenges, and how we were able to overcome some of the current limits in neuroergonomics.