Key result
Mental workload tasks elevate heart rate but HRV fails to correlate with subjective workload scores.
Why the study?
Measuring mental workload is essential to prevent exceeding workers capacity, but the relationship between objective physiological measures and subjective assessments required investigation.
Do objective HRV measures correlate with subjective NASA-TLX scores during mental workload tasks in healthy young adults?
Do objective HRV measures correlate with subjective NASA-TLX scores during mental workload tasks in healthy young adults?
Absolute Event Rate: 89.2% vs 82.73%
p-value: p=<0.001
Heart rate can distinguish between baseline and mental task engagement, but HRV indices do not correlate with subjective mental workload assessments (NASA-TLX) in this experimental setting.
Heart rate may flag mental task engagement in young adults; leaves open whether HRV tracks subjective workload.
The rapid advancement of technology has shifted many jobs to be dominated by mental or cognitive activities. Consequently, it is essential to measure mental workload (MWL) to ensure it does not exceed workers' capacity, which could increase error rates, pose safety risks, reduce productivity, and worsen well-being. This study aims to investigate the relationship between objective and subjective measures of mental workload. Using an experimental approach, HRV physiological signals were recorded from 30 subjects under four different conditions: baseline, MWL test 1 ("d2 attention" test), MWL test 2 ("switcher featuring" test), and recovery. Subjects were also asked to complete the NASA-TLX questionnaire to assess their perceived mental workload levels during the "d2 attention" and "switcher featuring" tests. The results of the repeated measures ANOVA showed significant differences in six HRV parameters across the four conditions. However, post-hoc tests revealed that only heart rate was able to distinguish between the two MWL tests. While NASA-TLX was sensitive enough to differentiate mental workload levels between the two types of tests, no significant correlations were found between each HRV index and NASA-TLX. This suggests a discrepancy between the two types of measures. Further studies are needed to employ different types of tests as well as other physiological measures.
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Sutarto et al. (2024) studied Mental workload (n=30). Mental workload tasks (d2 attention test and switcher featuring test) vs. Baseline was evaluated on Heart rate across baseline, mental workload tasks, and recovery (p=<0.001). Mental workload tasks significantly increased heart rate compared to baseline (p<0.001), but no significant correlations were found between heart rate variability indices and subjective NASA-TLX scores.
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