A characteristic of a navigator’s mental workload based on nasal Temperature

Abstract

A human skill is evaluated by a professional who has lots of experience and good sense. Quantitative evaluation comes from a performance and a questionnaire. Mental workload shows internal conditions and it is important for us to evaluate human skills, especially, intellectual performance. The physiological indices used to evaluate mental workload (decision-making effort). The heart rate variability (R-R interval) and the nasal temperature, are hopeful indices for the navigator based on our research. This paper proposes that the nasal temperature is an effective index to evaluate the mental workload of a navigator. The nasal temperature responds when the navigator makes a decision regarding ship-handling and collision avoidance, and shows well the whole trend of his decision-making.

A few comments on visual systems of a ship handling simulator for sea pilot training: Training for entering a port

“…7 [12]. It is difficult to fix the distance between the subject and the camera lens, and the size of the thermal images changes; however, previous experiments [13,14] had confirmed effective evaluation of the subject's mental workload with this spatial arrangement of the infrared camera and the subject on the bridge.…”

Evaluation of ship navigator's mental workload for ship handling based on salivary NO<inf>3</inf>&#x2212;

“…This study is first challenge for evaluating the mental workload using salivary NO 3 -worldwide, and we had to create the device to measure salivary NO 3 -at first. National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) has studied a sensor utilizing pH checker which changes pH value into salivary NO 3 -.…”

“…Physiological indices, heart rate variability (R-R interval) [1], [2], facial (nasal) temperature [3], and salivary amylase [4], [5] are sufficient to evaluate the mental workload of a ship bridge teammate: a captain, a duty officer, a helmsman, and a pilot. The salivary NO 3 -is crucial to get a result without subjects' putting on special sensors except taking their saliva.…”

“…The salivary NO 3 -is crucial to get a result without subjects' putting on special sensors except taking their saliva. This advantage is useful to evaluate the student and mariner's ship handling training (mental workload).…”

“…It is possible to evaluate a student's simulator training using salivary NO 3 -for a short time on the spot while s/he trains the ship handling. We have already confirmed that the salivary NO 3 -responds to NO 3 -in KNO 3 .…”