EEG-based neural activity for decoding situation awareness at different levels.

Abstract

Situation awareness (SA) is the ability to perceive, comprehend and project environmental information. Neural activity is closely associated with SA. However, it remains unclear how neural activity represents SA at different levels. Here, three tasks were used to assess SA at three levels, behavioural and electroencephalogram data were collected. Relationships between SA and neural activity were explored through comparisons of EEG power between high and low SA. For each SA level, EEG power significantly differed between high and low SA. Brain region-based analyses further revealed neural activities originating from distinct brain regions were recruited to represent SA at different levels. These EEG pattern features differed between high and low SA could be used to decode SA with the KNN (k-nearest neighbour) classifier. The present study marked a significant step in augmenting our understanding of the neural mechanism that characterise SA.