Familiarity and Complexity during a Takeover in Highly Automated Driving

This paper shows, how objective complexity and familiarity impact the subjective complexity and the time to make an action decision during the takeover task in a highly automated driving scenario. In the next generation of highly automated driving the driver remains as fallback and has to take over the driving task whenever the system reaches a limit. It is thus highly important to develop an assistance system that supports the individual driver based on information about the drivers’ current cognitive state. The impact of familiarity and complexity (objective and subjective) on the time to make an action decision during a takeover is investigated. To produce replicable driving scenarios and manipulate the independent variables situation familiarity and objective complexity, a driving simulator is used. Results show that the familiarity with a traffic situation as well as the objective complexity of the environment significantly influence the subjective complexity and the time to make an action decision. Furthermore, it is shown that the subjective complexity is a mediator variable between objective complexity/familiarity and the time to make an action decision. Complexity and familiarity are thus important parameters that have to be considered in the development of highly automated driving systems. Based on the presented mediation effect, the opportunity of gathering the drivers’ subjective complexity and adapting cognitive assistance systems accordingly is opened up. The results of this study provide a solid basis that enables an individualization of the takeover by implementing useful cognitive modeling to individualize cognitive assistance systems for highly automated driving.

Success of Hand Movement Imagination Depends on Personality Traits, Brain Asymmetry, and Degree of Handedness

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), based on motor imagery, are increasingly used in neurorehabilitation. However, some people cannot control BCI, predictors of this are the features of brain activity and personality traits. It is not known whether the success of BCI control is related to interhemispheric asymmetry. The study was conducted on 44 BCI-naive subjects and included one BCI session, EEG-analysis, 16PF Cattell Questionnaire, estimation of latent left-handedness, and of subjective complexity of real and imagery movements. The success of brain states recognition during imagination of left hand (LH) movement compared to the rest is higher in reserved, practical, skeptical, and not very sociable individuals. Extraversion, liveliness, and dominance are significant for the imagination of right hand (RH) movements in “pure” right-handers, and sensitivity in latent left-handers. Subjective complexity of real LH and of imagery RH movements correlates with the success of brain states recognition in the imagination of movement of LH compared to RH and depends on the level of handedness. Thus, the level of handedness is the factor influencing the success of BCI control. The data are supposed to be connected with hemispheric differences in motor control, lateralization of dopamine, and may be important for rehabilitation of patients after a stroke.

Characteristics of Interpersonal Perception in a Situation of Communication

The author presented the findings of the study individual and joint assessment of indivi­dual psychological traits of a person based on the image of his or her face, carried out in the Republic of Tyva. The findings show that there are significant differences in the assessment of personal traits based on the image of a person in an individual and joint situation of making interpersonal judgments; however, these differences are related to the identification of specific individual psychological traits. The researcher discovered inversely relationship between accuracy and subjective complexity of assessment of individual psychological traits of individuals of different races.

Plotting Imperfections in La Galatea

As with Boccaccio’s tale in the previous chapter, the story of Silerio and Timbrio from Cervantes’s pastoral novel, La Galatea, circulates around the notion of the test of friendship. In contrast to Boccaccio, however, Cervantes revels in upending the formal pretentions of the conventional paradigm for writing perfect friendship. Hinting at the enhanced subjective complexity of modern novelistic discourse, the narrative repeatedly disrupts the determinism of the traditional tale of two friends, the scripting of narrative outcomes in the interest of preserving the conceptual purity of the Aristotelian ideal. Thus, while the narrative superficially complies with the basic structural requirements of the tale of two friends tradition, there persists a powerful awareness of the contrived basis of that tradition that undermines the credibility of the narrative’s plotting.