Vehicle drive assist apparatus

A vehicle drive assist apparatus for a vehicle, the vehicle drive assist apparatus comprising:

• a forward environment recognition device including a camera or a sensor configured to acquire forward environment information of the vehicle;
• a lateral environment recognition device including a camera or a sensor configured to acquire lateral environment information of the vehicle;
• an alarm device including a monitor or a speaker configured to alert a driver who drives the vehicle through at least an alarm or a warning display;
• and
• circuitry configured to receive surrounding environment information including the forward environment information and the lateral environment information and activate the alarm device,
• wherein the circuitry is configured to compute a cognitive load value of the driver based on an object detected within a cognitive field-of-view area of the driver extracted from the surrounding environment information, and, in accordance with the cognitive load value, variably set a warning level of the alarm device to be activated upon detection of a potential collision object in the lateral environment information.