Key result
Stepwise increases in mental workload during a simulated flight task significantly increased frontal theta activity and reduced frontal deoxyhaemoglobin concentration, allowing discrimination of distinct workload levels.
Why the study?
Changes in mental workload are rarely varied systematically and few studies control for confounding effects of other cognitive states like mental fatigue.
p-value: p=<0.001
Physiological measurements using EEG and fNIRS can successfully discriminate different levels of mental workload during simulated flights, providing a potential data source for adaptive assistance systems in aviation.
Monitoring pilots' cognitive states becomes increasingly important in aviation. Physiological measurement can detect increased mental workload (MWL) even before performance declines. Yet, changes in MWL are rarely varied systematically and few studies control for confounding effects of other cognitive states. The present study targets these shortcomings by analysing the effects of stepwise increased MWL on cortical activation, while controlling for mental fatigue (MF). 35 participants conducted a simulated flight with an incorporated adapted n-back and monitoring task. We recorded cortical activation with concurrent EEG and fNIRS measurement, performance, self-reported MWL and MF. Our results show the successful manipulation of MWL without confounding effects of MF. Higher task difficulty elicited higher subjective MWL ratings, performance decline, higher frontal theta activity and reduced frontal deoxyhaemoglobin (Hbr) concentration. Using both EEG and fNIRS, we could discriminate all induced MWL levels. fNIRS was more sensitive to tasks with low difficulty, and EEG to tasks with high difficulty. Our findings further suggest a plateau effect for high MWL that could present an upper boundary to individual cognitive capacity. Our results highlight the benefits of physiological measurement in aviation, both for assessment of cognitive states and as a data source for adaptive assistance systems.
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Hamann et al. (2022) studied Healthy volunteers (n=35). Stepwise increased mental workload (n-back task) vs. Lower difficulty levels (0-back) was evaluated on Changes in cortical oxygenation (fNIRS) and frontal theta activity (EEG) (p=<0.001). Stepwise increases in mental workload during a simulated flight task significantly increased frontal theta activity and reduced frontal deoxyhaemoglobin concentration, allowing discrimination of distinct workload levels.
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