Evidence for human-centric in-vehicle lighting: part 3—Illumination preferences based on subjective ratings, eye-tracking behavior, and EEG features

Abstract

Within this third part of our mini-series, searching for the best and worst automotive in-vehicle lighting settings, we aim to extend our previous finding about white light illumination preferences by adding local cortical area activity as one key indicator. Frontal electrical potential asymmetry, measured using an electroencephalogram (EEG), is a highly correlated index for identifying positive and negative emotional behavior, primarily in the alpha band. It is rarely understood to what extent this observation can be applied to the evaluation of subjective preference or dislike based on luminaire variations in hue, chroma, and lightness. Within a controlled laboratory study, we investigated eight study participants who answered this question after they were shown highly immersive 360° image renderings. By so doing, we first subjectively defined, based on four different external driving scenes varying in location and time settings, the best and worst luminaire settings by changing six unlabeled luminaire sliders. Emotional feedback was collected based on semantic differentials and an emotion wheel. Furthermore, we recorded 120 Hz gaze data to identify the most important in-vehicle area of interest during the luminaire adaptation process. In the second study session, we recorded EEG data during a binocular observation task of repeated images arbitrarily paired by previously defined best and worst lighting settings and separated between all four driving scenes. Results from gaze data showed that the central vehicle windows with the left-side orientated colorful in-vehicle fruit table were both significantly longer fixed than other image areas. Furthermore, the previously identified cortical EEG feature describing the maximum power spectral density could successfully separate positive and negative luminaire settings based only on cortical activity. Within the four driving scenes, two external monotonous scenes followed trendlines defined by highly emotionally correlated images. More interesting external scenes contradicted this trend, suggesting an external emotional bias stronger than the emotional changes created by luminaires. Therefore, we successfully extended our model to define the best and worst in-vehicle lighting with cortical features by touching the field of neuroaesthetics.