Variation of EEG Band Powers Related with Human Errors in Knowledge-based Responses

Problem solving and/or decision making process usually encountered in human living consists of a sequence of human behaviors based upon his/her knowledge. Thus, Rasmussen introduced Skill-Rule-Knowledge paradigm to countermeasure human errors that can occur in Nuclear Power Plants. Unfortunately however, it was not so easy as expected since objective evidence have not been obtainable with conventional research techniques. With the help of EEG band pawer ratio techniques, this study tried to get psycho-physiological symptoms of human errors, if any, while human beings perform knowledge-based behaviors such as simple arithmetic computations with different difficulty level. A set of simulated works was carried out with a computer station. Four kinds of arithmetic computation tasks were given to 10 health male under-graduate students on different day individually, and during the experiment, EEG and ECG was measured continuously for objective psycho-physiological analysis. According to the results, <TEX>α</TEX>/(<TEX>α+β</TEX>) as well as <TEX>α/β</TEX> band power ratio were sensitive to task difficulty level which consistently decreased both. However, any one of them failed to reveal the influence of tasks with different difficulty level in the aspect of task duration time. On the contrary, Heart Rate Variability was more suggestive than expected. To make a conclusion, it can be said that band power of EEG waves will be helpful in not only assessment of work difficulty level but also assessment of workers' skill development if supported by cardiac function such as HRV.