Abstract In long tunnels where the driving environment is boring and monotonous, the speed perception of drivers is usually compromised. Although researchers have conducted a host of studies on driving safety in tunnels and found out that the sidewall environment was a significant factor that affected driver behavior inside tunnels, little is known regarding the mechanism of how the tunnel sidewall impacts the drivers, especially which regions of neural system are related to the impact of the sidewall. To fill this gap, the current study aims at examining the influence of the decorated tunnel sidewall on drivers’ brain activity using fMRI. To this end, an experiment was conducted where thirty-five subjects are recruited. The experiment was conducted using fMRI under two tunnel scenarios: empty sidewall and decorated sidewall. The video of the driving scene was taken in the real driving environment of a tunnel and presented by a projector outside the operating room. The results showed that the fusiform gyrus and precuneus were more activated in tunnels with the decorated sidewall than that with an empty sidewall. These regions are known to be responsible for visual recognition, visual processing and visual spatial functions. Therefore, it indicates that the presence of decorated sidewall provides drivers with a better spatial and speed perception and could help reduce accidents associated with speed judgment. The differences between driver groups were also explored and the finding revealed that the activation level of superior frontal gyrus is different between male and female drivers, which indicated that the same sidewall decoration has different effect between driver groups.

中文翻译：

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使用 fMRI 技术检查装饰侧墙对公路隧道的影响

摘要 在行车环境枯燥单调的长隧道中，驾驶员的速度感知往往受到影响。尽管研究人员对隧道行车安全进行了大量研究，发现侧壁环境是影响隧道内驾驶员行为的重要因素，但对隧道侧壁如何影响驾驶员的机制知之甚少，尤其是隧道的哪些区域神经系统与侧壁的影响有关。为了填补这一空白，目前的研究旨在使用 fMRI 检查装饰隧道侧壁对驾驶员大脑活动的影响。为此，进行了一项实验，其中招募了 35 名受试者。该实验是在两种隧道场景下使用 fMRI 进行的：空侧壁和装饰侧壁。驾驶场景的视频是在隧道的真实驾驶环境中拍摄的，并由手术室外的投影仪呈现。结果表明，在装饰侧壁的隧道中，梭状回和楔前叶比空侧壁的隧道更活跃。已知这些区域负责视觉识别、视觉处理和视觉空间功能。因此，它表明装饰侧壁的存在为驾驶员提供了更好的空间和速度感知，并有助于减少与速度判断相关的事故。还探讨了司机群体之间的差异，结果表明，男性和女性司机的额上回激活水平不同，