A Theoretical Model of Mental Workload in Pilots Based on Multiple Experimental Measurements

Abstract

The present study attempted to establish an effective discrimination and prediction model that can be applied to evaluate mental workload changes in human-machine interaction processes on aircraft flight deck. By adopting a combined measure based on primary task measurement, subjective measurement and physiological measurement, this study developed both experimental measurement and theoretical modeling of mental workload under flight simulation task conditions. The experimental results showed that, as the mental workload increased, the peak amplitude of Mismatch negativity (MMN) was significantly increased, SDNN (the standard deviation of R-R intervals) was significantly decreased，the number of eye blink was decreased significantly. Finally, a comprehensive mental workload discrimination and prediction model for the aircraft flight deck display interface was constructed by the Bayesian Fisher discrimination and classification method. The model's accuracy was checked by original validation method. When comparing the prediction and discrimination results of this comprehensive model with that of single indices, the former showed much higher accuracy.

A study on differences in human perception between a real and an AR scene viewed in an OST‐HMD

“…In order to explain why we did not notice such an increase in the subsequent sessions, we provide the following explanation. We know that STD‐RR and SD2 showed contradicting sensitivities to workload compared with operator fatigue: They increased with operator fatigue and decreased with mental workload . However, mental workload only appears after a certain amount of time.…”

“…They also mentioned that some HRV measures such as HR and HRV showed contradicting sensitivities to workload compared with operator fatigue. In addition, we also found that STD‐RR and SD2 have similar contradicting sensitivities to workload and fatigue: STD‐RR and SD2 increased with the increasing of operator fatigue, whereas STD‐RR decreased with the increasing of mental workload and SD2 was significant lower in the high mental workload condition than in the low mental workload condition…”

“…From the results of the paired sample t test, blink duration shows a significant increase after the virtual magic cube task with an average increase in magnitude of 35.6 milliseconds with a base average value of 258.96 milliseconds. As mentioned above (see Wei et al), an increase in blink duration of 50 milliseconds (given a base value of 200 ms) arises when subjects experience drowsiness. Even if our results have not reached the extent of a drowsy condition, we still believe that the significant increase of blink duration reflects that subjects suffered from visual fatigue, to a certain extent, after the virtual magic cube task.…”

“…We know that STD-RR and SD2 showed contradicting sensitivities to workload compared with operator fatigue: They increased with operator fatigue and decreased with mental workload. 22,47,51,52 However, mental workload only appears after a certain amount of time. As a consequence, it is possible that STD-RR and SD2 started to be impacted by the mental workload after session 3 (which represents roughly 10 min).…”

Multi-modal physiological sensing approach for distinguishing high workload events in remotely piloted aircraft simulation

“…Many studies across various domains demonstrate that physiological sensors can be used to predict operator workload (Charles and Nixon 2019). Heart rate and heart rate variability (HRV) metrics have been correlated with workload in many studies and application areas (Abdelrahman et al 2015;Cinaz et al 2013;McDuff et al 2014;Mehler et al 2012;Moses et al 2007;Sugimoto et al 2016;Sztajzel 2004;Wei et al 2014b;G. F. Wilson 2002).…”