Lydia Helene Rupp

Amr Gomaa, Alexandra Alles, Elena Meiser et al.

Several researchers have focused on studying driver cognitive behavior and mental load for in-vehicle interaction while driving. Adaptive interfaces that vary with mental and perceptual load levels could help in reducing accidents and enhancing the driver experience. In this paper, we analyze the effects of mental workload and perceptual load on psychophysiological dimensions and provide a machine learning-based framework for mental and perceptual load estimation in a dual task scenario for in-vehicle interaction (https://github.com/amrgomaaelhady/MWL-PL-estimator). We use off-the-shelf non-intrusive sensors that can be easily integrated into the vehicle's system. Our statistical analysis shows that while mental workload influences some psychophysiological dimensions, perceptual load shows little effect. Furthermore, we classify the mental and perceptual load levels through the fusion of these measurements, moving towards a real-time adaptive in-vehicle interface that is personalized to user behavior and driving conditions. We report up to 89% mental workload classification accuracy and provide a real-time minimally-intrusive solution.

Aditya Parikh, Misha Sadeghi, Robert Richer et al.

Depression is characterized by persistent sadness and loss of interest, significantly impairing daily functioning and now a widespread mental disorder. Traditional diagnostic methods rely on subjective assessments, necessitating objective approaches for accurate diagnosis. Our study investigates the use of facial action units (AUs) and emotions as biomarkers for depression. We analyzed facial expressions from video data of participants classified with or without depression. Our methodology involved detailed feature extraction, mean intensity comparisons of key AUs, and the application of time series classification models. Furthermore, we employed Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and various clustering algorithms to explore the variability in emotional expression patterns. Results indicate significant differences in the intensities of AUs associated with sadness and happiness between the groups, highlighting the potential of facial analysis in depression assessment.