Coupling Mobile Brain Imaging and Virtual Reality Omnidirectional Treadmill to Explore Attenuated Situational Awareness During Distracted Walking

Walking while engaging in distracting activities affects our perception of changes happening on the road, leading to exposure to hazardous conditions. This study aimed to evidence that pedestrians who become distracted when absorbed in their smartphones fail to maintain situational awareness. Thirty-six recruited participants performed a psychomotor vigilance task and a wayfinding task designed to simulate a multitasking scenario; meanwhile, an auditory oddball paradigm presented to participants tested their situational awareness of an external stimulus. The experiment was conducted in virtual reality (VR) environment with an omnidirectional treadmill. Participant’s behavioral and electroencephalographic (EEG) responses were measured and analyzed using a newly proposed brain network measure, phase locking distance (PLD), to capture multitasking-associated couplings between brain regions. The current study supports the notion that multitasking can lead to diminished behavioral performance and changes in walking patterns. Despite the increased interregional brain connectivity, which may be an adaptive response to heightened cognitive demands, the associated reduction in event-related EEG activity suggests competition for neural resources during multitasking. Moreover, the observed EEG activities could indicate additional information processing capacity limitations and provide evidence of decreased situational awareness during multitasking, thereby increasing susceptibility to potentially hazardous situations.