Air quality in the car: How CO and body odor affect drivers' cognition and driving performance?

Elevated indoor levels of CO and the presence of body odor have been shown to have adverse effects on the cognitive function of building occupants. These factors may also contribute to impaired in-car driving performance, potentially posing a threat to transportation and public safety. To investigate the effects of CO and body odor on driving performance, we enrolled 25 participants in highway driving tasks under three indoor CO levels (800, 1800, and 3500 ppm) and two body odor conditions (presence and absence). CO was injected in the cabin to increase CO levels. In addition, we assessed working memory and reaction time using N-back tasks during driving. We found that driving speed, acceleration, and lateral control were not significantly affected by either CO or body odor. We observed no significant differences in sleepiness or emotion under varying CO or body odor conditions, except for a lower level of emotion valence with exposure to body odor. Task load was also not significantly impacted by CO or body odor levels, except for a higher reported effort at 1800 ppm compared to 800 ppm CO. However, participants did demonstrate significantly higher accuracy with increased body odor exposure, suggesting a complex effect of volatile organic compounds on driver cognition. Our findings also revealed moderating effects of task difficulty of N-back tests and exposure duration on cognition and driving performance. This is one of the first few in-depth studies regarding environmental factors and their effect on drivers' cognition and driving performance, and these results provide valuable insights for car-cabin environmental design for air quality and driving safety.