Effect Of Vibration Amplitude Level On Seated Occupant Reaction Time

The past decade has seen the rapid development of vibration comfort in the automotive industry. However little attention has been paid to vibration drowsiness. Eighteen male volunteers were recruited for this experiment. Before commencing the experiment total transmitted acceleration measured at interfaces between the seat cushion and seatback to human body was adjusted to become 0.2 ms-2 r.m.s and 0.4 ms-2 r.m.s for each volunteer. Seated volunteers were exposed to Gaussian random vibration with frequency band 1-15 Hz at two level of amplitude low vibration amplitude and medium vibration amplitude for 20-minutes in separate days. For the purpose of drowsiness measurement volunteers were asked to complete 10-minutes PVT test before and after vibration exposure and rate their subjective drowsiness by giving score using Karolinska Sleepiness Scale KSS before vibration every 5-minutes interval and following 20-minutes of vibration exposure. Strong evidence of drowsiness was found as there was a significant increase in reaction time and number of lapse following exposure to vibration in both conditions. However the effect is more apparent in medium vibration amplitude. A steady increase of drowsiness level can also be observed in KSS in all volunteers. However no significant differences were found in KSS between low vibration amplitude and medium vibration amplitude. The results of this investigation suggest that exposure to vibration has an adverse effect on human alertness level and more pronounced at higher vibration amplitude. Taken together these findings suggest a role of vibration in promoting drowsiness especially at higher vibration amplitude.