ICA-Derived EEG Correlates to Mental Fatigue, Effort, and Workload in a Realistically Simulated Air Traffic Control Task
نویسندگان
چکیده
Electroencephalograph (EEG) has been increasingly studied to identify distinct mental factors when persons perform cognitively demanding tasks. However, most of these studies examined EEG correlates at channel domain, which suffers the limitation that EEG signals are the mixture of multiple underlying neuronal sources due to the volume conduction effect. Moreover, few studies have been conducted in real-world tasks. To precisely probe EEG correlates with specific neural substrates to mental factors in real-world tasks, the present study examined EEG correlates to three mental factors, i.e., mental fatigue [also known as time-on-task (TOT) effect], workload and effort, in EEG component signals, which were obtained using an independent component analysis (ICA) on high-density EEG data. EEG data were recorded when subjects performed a realistically simulated air traffic control (ATC) task for 2 h. Five EEG independent component (IC) signals that were associated with specific neural substrates (i.e., the frontal, central medial, motor, parietal, occipital areas) were identified. Their spectral powers at their corresponding dominant bands, i.e., the theta power of the frontal IC and the alpha power of the other four ICs, were detected to be correlated to mental workload and effort levels, measured by behavioral metrics. Meanwhile, a linear regression analysis indicated that spectral powers at five ICs significantly increased with TOT. These findings indicated that different levels of mental factors can be sensitively reflected in EEG signals associated with various brain functions, including visual perception, cognitive processing, and motor outputs, in real-world tasks. These results can potentially aid in the development of efficient operational interfaces to ensure productivity and safety in ATC and beyond.
منابع مشابه
ارزیابی بارکاری ذهنی کنترلر های ترافیک هوایی بر اساس فاکتورهای باروظیفه در شبیه ساز کنترل ترافیک هوایی
Background and aim: Air traffic control has known as a complex cognitive task, which requires controller to focus on task for long time. Mental workload plays an important role in the performance of controllers. The aim of this study was to assess the workload of air traffic controller on the basis of task load factors. Methods: The present descriptive-analytical study was conducted among fo...
متن کاملApplication of Electroencephalography (EEG) in Ergonomics: A systematic review study
Background and Objectives: Electroencephalography is one of the non-invasive and relatively inexpensive methods that can be used to evaluate neurophysiology and cognitive functions. This systematic review study was performed with the aim of using electroencephalography (EEG) in ergonomics. Methods: In this review study, all articles published in Persian and English on the application of elec...
متن کاملPsychophysiological responses to changes in workload during simulated air traffic control.
In this investigation, eight Air Force air traffic controllers (ATCs) performed three scenarios on TRACON (Terminal Radar Approach Control), a computer-based air traffic control (ATC) simulation. Two scenarios were used each with three levels of difficulty. One scenario varied traffic volume by manipulating the number of aircraft to be handled and the second scenario varied traffic complexity b...
متن کاملEvaluation of Rating Scale Mental Effort (RSME) effectiveness for mental workload assessment in nurses
Background: Mental workload is one of the factors that influence individuals’ performance in the work environment as well as their efficiency and productivity. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the Rating Scale Mental Effort (RSME) for mental workload in nurses. Materials and Methods: This study was descriptive and cross-sectional conducted on 75 nurses. For assessment ...
متن کاملبررسی رابطه بین بار کار فکری و خستگی در رانندگان اتوبوس شهری
Introduction: Driving crash is one of major concerns in all countries. Mental workload reflects the level of attention resources required to meet both objec­tive and subjective performance criteria, which may be affected by task demand, external support, and past experience. Mental workload has been commonly cited as a major cause of workplace and transportation accidents. The objectiv...
متن کامل