Cargando…

Grip Force on Steering Wheel as a Measure of Stress

Driver performance is crucial for road safety. There is a relationship between performance and stress such that too high or too low stress levels (usually characterized by stressful or careless driving, respectively) impair driving quality. Therefore, monitoring stress levels can improve the overall...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Sahar, Yotam, Elbaum, Tomer, Wagner, Michael, Musicant, Oren, Hirsh, Tehila, Shoval, Shraga
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8215286/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34163394
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.617889
_version_ 1783710219101011968
author Sahar, Yotam
Elbaum, Tomer
Wagner, Michael
Musicant, Oren
Hirsh, Tehila
Shoval, Shraga
author_facet Sahar, Yotam
Elbaum, Tomer
Wagner, Michael
Musicant, Oren
Hirsh, Tehila
Shoval, Shraga
author_sort Sahar, Yotam
collection PubMed
description Driver performance is crucial for road safety. There is a relationship between performance and stress such that too high or too low stress levels (usually characterized by stressful or careless driving, respectively) impair driving quality. Therefore, monitoring stress levels can improve the overall performance of drivers by providing either an alert or intervention when stress levels are sub-optimal. Commonly used stress measures suffer from several shortcomings, such as time delays in indication and invasiveness of sensors. Grip force is a relatively new measure that shows promising results in measuring stress during psychomotor tasks. In driving, grip force sensor is non-invasive and transparent to the end user as drivers must continuously grip the steering wheel. The aim of the current research is to examine whether grip force can be used as a useful measure of stress in driving tasks. Twenty-one participants took part in a field experiment in which they were required to brake the vehicle in various intensities. The effects of the braking intensity on grip force, heart rate, and heart rate variability were analyzed. The results indicate a significant correlation between these three parameters. These results provide initial evidence that grip force can be used to measure stress in driving tasks. These findings may have several applications in the field of stress and driving research as well as in the vehicle safety domain.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-8215286
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2021
publisher Frontiers Media S.A.
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-82152862021-06-22 Grip Force on Steering Wheel as a Measure of Stress Sahar, Yotam Elbaum, Tomer Wagner, Michael Musicant, Oren Hirsh, Tehila Shoval, Shraga Front Psychol Psychology Driver performance is crucial for road safety. There is a relationship between performance and stress such that too high or too low stress levels (usually characterized by stressful or careless driving, respectively) impair driving quality. Therefore, monitoring stress levels can improve the overall performance of drivers by providing either an alert or intervention when stress levels are sub-optimal. Commonly used stress measures suffer from several shortcomings, such as time delays in indication and invasiveness of sensors. Grip force is a relatively new measure that shows promising results in measuring stress during psychomotor tasks. In driving, grip force sensor is non-invasive and transparent to the end user as drivers must continuously grip the steering wheel. The aim of the current research is to examine whether grip force can be used as a useful measure of stress in driving tasks. Twenty-one participants took part in a field experiment in which they were required to brake the vehicle in various intensities. The effects of the braking intensity on grip force, heart rate, and heart rate variability were analyzed. The results indicate a significant correlation between these three parameters. These results provide initial evidence that grip force can be used to measure stress in driving tasks. These findings may have several applications in the field of stress and driving research as well as in the vehicle safety domain. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-06-07 /pmc/articles/PMC8215286/ /pubmed/34163394 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.617889 Text en Copyright © 2021 Sahar, Elbaum, Wagner, Musicant, Hirsh and Shoval. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/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) and the copyright owner(s) 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.
spellingShingle Psychology
Sahar, Yotam
Elbaum, Tomer
Wagner, Michael
Musicant, Oren
Hirsh, Tehila
Shoval, Shraga
Grip Force on Steering Wheel as a Measure of Stress
title Grip Force on Steering Wheel as a Measure of Stress
title_full Grip Force on Steering Wheel as a Measure of Stress
title_fullStr Grip Force on Steering Wheel as a Measure of Stress
title_full_unstemmed Grip Force on Steering Wheel as a Measure of Stress
title_short Grip Force on Steering Wheel as a Measure of Stress
title_sort grip force on steering wheel as a measure of stress
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8215286/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34163394
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.617889
work_keys_str_mv AT saharyotam gripforceonsteeringwheelasameasureofstress
AT elbaumtomer gripforceonsteeringwheelasameasureofstress
AT wagnermichael gripforceonsteeringwheelasameasureofstress
AT musicantoren gripforceonsteeringwheelasameasureofstress
AT hirshtehila gripforceonsteeringwheelasameasureofstress
AT shovalshraga gripforceonsteeringwheelasameasureofstress