Attention Detection in Virtual Environments Using EEG Signals: A Scoping Review

Figures

• 

  FIGURE 1. Attention taxonomy merging traditional definitions. Attention allocation can be detected from different approaches, the internal or external triggers may characterize attention in immersive or cognitive load state. Upper box: the arrows point to the subject’s head – the elements that make up the stimulus path come from the external environment into the individual – so the attention allocation is guided by the stimulus – ‘stimulus- driven’ – prevailing in higher immersion states (due to screen or virtual environment stimuli). ‘Arousal’ – first box and first reflex of the stimulus perception. Lower box: elements that involve internal attention allocation, ‘executive’ relates the first cognitive reflex of the content selection for oriented attention. ‘Goal-directed’ – attention oriented from an internal stimulus – prevailing in higher cognitive load states –, but, the goal-directed mechanism also occurs when external stimulus-oriented attention reaches its target, so the goal-directed arrows cross both stimuli directions showing the two boxes interaction. Schematic overview inspired on (Chun et al., 2011) work.

• 

  FIGURE 2. PRISMA flow chart scoping attention allocation, virtual reality, cognitive workload and fatigue.

• 

  FIGURE 3. Main predictors for identification of attention allocation, higher immersion states and higher cognitive load effects as found in the database. Image of public domain, by Laurens R. Krol. EEG electrode positions in the 10–10 system using modified combinatorial nomenclature. The electrode sites are color-coded according to the lobes of the brain which their labels (F, C, P, O, and T) represent. The head indicates the location of the fiducials: the nasion (Nz), the (left) pre-auricular point (LPA), the (right) pre-auricular point (RPA), and the inion (Iz). About the studies cited, up arrows are for increase of those features and down arrows for decrease. The studies and patients are detach from Supplementary Table 1, here are grouped in methodologies and main predictors to indicated attention allocation and similar investigated states. The green color shades the frontal and pre-frontal areas (electrodes: Fp1, Fp2, Fpz, F1–F10, AF3, AF4, AF7, AF8, AFz, and Fz), in these areas the eight studies described in the ‘Main Findings’ section identify rising α and θ and declining δ and β in recognized attention allocation states; orange color shade is in fronto-parietal areas (Fp1, Fp2, Fpz,…