Verification of Contraction of Frontalis Muscle as An Indicator of Resistance to Drowsiness

Abstract

This paper describes an experiment designed to verify whether contraction of the frontalis muscle indicates resistance to drowsiness. Electromyograms (EMG) of the frontalis muscle were monitored while the subject operated a driving simulator under the following two conditions : (1) Dozing not permitted, (2) Dozing permitted. We measured the resulting data of the 15 tested subjects and analyzed the contraction of the frontalis muscle by comparing the results taken from the two conditions listed above. The results showed that the contraction of frontalis muscle observed in condition (2) was smaller than that which was observed in condition (1) by a significant degree. It was concluded that contraction of the frontalis muscle indicates a resistance to drowsiness. There were significant differences in frontalis activity between condition (1) and (2) during the early stage of the test before dozing occurred. We have concluded that frontalis muscle activity is a viable method to detect early stage drowsiness.