VEHICLE DRIVE ASSIST APPARATUS

A vehicle drive assist apparatus for a vehicle includes: a forward environment recognition device configured to acquire forward environment information of the vehicle; a lateral environment recognition device configured to acquire lateral environment information of the vehicle; an alarm device configured to alert a driver who drives the vehicle through at least an alarm or a warning display; and a control unit configured to receive surrounding environment information including the forward environment information and the lateral environment information and activate the alarm device. The control unit 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.