Correlation between Physiological Parameters of Automobile Drivers and Traffic Conditions

Driving a car is a complex cognitive process in which even a small lack of attention can have disastrous consequences. Various studies have been conducted in the past focusing mainly on the driver’s internal state (physical and emotional) like drowsiness, fatigue and mental stress as these are the major cause behind large number of fatal road accidents worldwide. The studies show that in most of the automobile driver’s Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) and Heart Rate (HR) parameters are more closely related to drivers stress level. The authors accessed raw physiological signals available at PHYSIONET website and then extract useful statistical features from these. The most relevant features were then selected using open source software. Removal of irrelevant features makes the stress detection model much faster and helps to gain a deeper insight into the underlying processes of stress detection and classification. Correlation analysis on the selected features showed that Mean HR and Mean Hand GSR are the two statistical features that have a very strong correlation with changing traffic conditions.