Assessment of EEG Signal Quality in Motion Environments

Abstract : Assessing the neurocognitive demands of humans operating in real-world environments is critical for understanding Soldier performance. However, the capability to reliably measure brain dynamics of Soldiers in operational environments is a major challenge because of inherent artifacts in real environments. This study quantified the integrity of electroencephalographic (EEG) signals as a function of varied motion artifacts that are characteristic of realistic environments. Participants performed a standard auditory discrimination task in three ambulatory and three vehicle motion environments. Classic event-related potential (ERP) waveforms were observed as evidenced by higher amplitude P300s to target vs. non-target stimuli and increasing amplitudes from frontal to parietal midline recording sites in some conditions. However, artifacts in other conditions resulted in significant data loss and contamination that prevented analysis of ERP data. Spectral analyses were also applied to characterize the nature and extent of artifacts present in each condition, showing that induced signal artifacts were generally related to the specific motion environments. In conclusion, our results suggest that EEG can be reliably recorded in certain operational environments such as driving on paved or washboard surfaces, but advanced technologies and artifact reduction algorithms are required to improve signal reliability in ambulatory and more extensive vehicle motion environments.