Emotional State Evaluation during Collision Avoidance Operations of Seafarers Using Ship Bridge Simulator and Wearable EEG

Seafarers' emotional states (e.g., pleasure, displeasure, excitement, and stress) has been proved as a critical factor that affects their performance during collision avoidance operations. The emotion can be quantified using an electroencephalogram (EEG) sensor to reflect its correlations with human performance. Given the advantages of wearable EEG (portable, wireless and high resolutions), it provides an effective method for non-intrusive emotion measurement. This study conducted experiments to measure the emotional states of the seafarers. Firstly, two encounter situations based on the ship bridge simulator were formulated for the test. During the experiments, the participants were required to wear an EEG that measures brain activity reflecting the emotional states of seafarers while operating using the ship bridge simulator. At the same time, the trajectories of vessel movement were recorded accordingly. Next, a bipolar dimensional emotion model consisting of valence (from displeasure to pleasure) and arousal (from relaxation to excitement) dimensions, was generated to identify seafarers' emotional states. Integrated with vessel trajectory data (such as rudder angle, ship speed, etc.), the correlation analysis was conducted to explore the patterns of seafarers' emotion during collision avoidance operations. The results show that the emotional states of seafarers varied in different ship encounter situations and were closely related to the vessel trajectory. Also, it demonstrated the applicability of wearable EEG technology in emotional state evaluations for seafarers.