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 | Neurobehavioral and Psychosocial Factors |
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Current
Projects
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ProjectsProject Technical Summary
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Astronauts must maintain high-level performance while experiencing demanding workload and work schedules, extreme environmental risks and psychosocial stressors in space (e.g., isolation, confinement). Stress, negative emotions and fatigue can jeopardize their cognitive performance and neurobehavioral status. The project research will deliver an objective, unobtrusive, computational model-based tracker of the human face that validly and reliably identifies when astronauts are experiencing stress, emotion and fatigue at levels that compromise performance in space. This optical computer recognition (OCR) system will provide feedback to astronauts for autonomous selection of countermeasures for stress, depression and fatigue. The project will be accomplished through collaborative efforts of Dr. David Dinges (Unit for Experimental Psychiatry) at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Dr. Dimitris Metaxas (Computational Biomedicine Imaging and Modeling Center) at Rutgers University.
Specific Aims
- Create an OCR system capable of monitoring facial displays of specific emotions (i.e., angry, happy and sad).
- Improve our current OCR systems ability to detect facial expressions of high versus low performance-induced stress.
- Develop OCR algorithms to identify fatigue due to sleep loss, based on slow eyelid closures (PERCLOS).
- Test the technical feasibility of data acquisition and reliability of the advanced OCR system in spaceflight analogs that contain neurobehavioral stressors relevant to spaceflight (e.g., NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations).
The study focuses on the ability of an unobtrusive, automated optical technology to detect psychological stress, emotion and fatigue during operational performance. The knowledge gained has the potential to identify an objective, unobtrusive, automated method for the recognition, monitoring and management of the risks of neurobehavioral dysfunction in affect and alertness in spaceflight and in many Earth-based safety-sensitive occupations, such as transportation workers (e.g., truck drivers, train conductors, airline pilots); operators in safety-sensitive industries (e.g., power plant control rooms); and military personnel.