Objective: We aimed to provide an assessment of the impact of workload manipulations on various cardiac measurements. We further sought to determine the most effective measurement approaches of cognitive workload as well as quantify the conditions under which these measures are most effective for interpretation. Background: Cognitive workload affects human performance, particularly when load is relatively high (overload) or low (underload). Despite ongoing interest in assessing cognitive workload through cardiac measures, it is currently unclear which cardiac-based assessments best indicate cognitive workload. Although several quantitative studies and qualitative reviews have sought to provide guidance, no meta-analytic integration of cardiac assessment(s) of cognitive workload exists to date. Method: We used Morris and DeShon’s meta-analytic procedures to quantify the changes in cardiac measures due to task load conditions. Results: Sample-weighted Cohen’s d values suggest that several metrics of cardiac activity demonstrate sensitivity in response to cognitive workload manipulations. Heart rate variability measures show sensitivity to task load, conditions of event rate, and task duration. Authors of future work should seek to quantify the utility of leveraging multiple metrics to understand workload. Conclusion: Results suggest that assessment of cognitive workload can be done using various cardiac activity indicators. Further, given the number of valid and reliable measures available, researchers and practitioners should base their selection of a psychophysiological measure on the experimental and practical concerns inherent to their task/protocol. Applications: Findings bear implications for future assessment of cognitive workload within basic and applied settings. Future research should seek to validate conditions under which measurements are best interpreted, including but not limited to individual differences.
This study introduces “Google Trends” as a social data source in monitoring and modeling the dynamics of drought awareness during the 2011–17 California drought. In this study, drought awareness is defined and operationalized as the relative search interest activities within California, using the search term “drought” from Google Trends. First, the 2011–17 California drought is characterized in the duration–intensity curve with other historical California droughts for comparative purposes, using the 12-month standard precipitation index data (1895–2017). Second, the potential triggers of the peaks of drought awareness during the 2011–17 California drought are investigated through Google Trends and Google Search. The Google Trends data show that the first peak of drought awareness occurred when the drought condition reached its peak and the governor declared the drought emergency (January 2014). The other peaks in August 2014, April 2015, and January 2017 are related to public interest in drought recovery driven by the forecast of the strong El Niño winter of 2014/15, the governor’s issue of water use rules, and California floods in early 2017, respectively. Last, a power-law decay model of drought awareness is fitted to the Google Trends data. According to the fitted power-law model, Californians remained interested in drought after the social trigger–related peaks longer than they did after the natural trigger–related peaks. The findings of this study suggest that it is necessary to develop a more realistic social dynamic modeling for communities that can respond to natural and human triggers and capture interactions with awareness of related disasters.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.