Physiological Indicators of Workload in a Remotely Piloted Aircraft Simulation

Abstract : Toward preventing performance decrements associated with mental overload in remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) operations, the current research investigated the feasibility of using physiological measures to assess cognitive workload. Two RPA operators were interviewed to identify factors that impact workload in target tracking missions. Performance, subjective workload, cortical, cardiac and eye data were collected. One cardiac and several eye measures were sensitive to changes in workload as evidenced by performance and subjective workload data. This research advances the literature toward real-time workload mitigation in RPA field operations.

[1]  S. M. Sommer.  SOCIAL COMPETITION: IDENTIFYING NEW PERSPECTIVES AND STRATEGIES FOR TASK MOTIVATION , 1995 .

[2]  L. Mulder.  Measurement and analysis methods of heart rate and respiration for use in applied environments , 1992, Biological Psychology.

[3]  Ernst Fernando Lopes Da Silva Niedermeyer,et al.  Electroencephalography, basic principles, clinical applications, and related fields , 1982 .

[4]  Gisela Müller-Plath,et al.  Localizing subprocesses of visual search by correlating local brain activation in fMRI with response time model parameters , 2008, Journal of Neuroscience Methods.

[5]  Glenn F. Wilson,et al.  Performance and Psychophysiological Measures of Fatigue Effects on Aviation Related Tasks of Varying Difficulty , 2007 .

[6]  Scott M. Galster,et al.  The Electrooculogram and a New Blink Detection Algorithm , 2015 .

[7]  Christopher D. Wickens,et al.  Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Flight Control: False Alarms versus Misses , 2004 .

[8]  J. J. Seta,et al.  The impact of comparison processes on coactors' task performance. , 1982 .

[9]  Glenn F. Wilson,et al.  Recording of Psychophysiological Data During Aerobatic Training , 2011 .

[10]  J. R. Comstock.  MAT - MULTI-ATTRIBUTE TASK BATTERY FOR HUMAN OPERATOR WORKLOAD AND STRATEGIC BEHAVIOR RESEARCH , 1994 .

[11]  Nigel H. Lovell,et al.  Characterizing mental load in an arithmetic task using entropy-based features , 2012, 2012 11th International Conference on Information Science, Signal Processing and their Applications (ISSPA).

[12]  James C. Christensen,et al.  Coadaptive Aiding and Automation Enhance Operator Performance , 2013, Hum. Factors.

[13]  Thomas E. Nygren,et al.  Psychometric Properties of Subjective Workload Measurement Techniques: Implications for Their Use in the Assessment of Perceived Mental Workload , 1991 .

[14]  D. Mcintyre,et al.  Effects of competition on endurance performance and the underlying psychological and physiological mechanisms , 2011, Biological Psychology.

[15]  J R Wolpaw,et al.  Spatial filter selection for EEG-based communication. , 1997, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[16]  Lauren E. Ethridge,et al.  Preparatory Activations across a Distributed Cortical Network Determine Production of Express Saccades in Humans , 2010, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[17]  J. Veltman,et al.  Physiological workload reactions to increasing levels of task difficulty. , 1998, Ergonomics.

[18]  Stephen W. Porges,et al.  Research methods for measurement of heart rate and respiration , 1992, Biological Psychology.

[19]  Jennie J. Gallimore,et al.  Emerging areas: urban operations and UCAVs: human effectiveness issues in simulated uninhabited combat aerial vehicles , 2003, WSC '03.

[20]  R. Martens.  Social Psychology And Physical Activity , 1975 .

[21]  Pamela S. Tsang,et al.  Mental Workload and Situation Awareness , 2006 .

[22]  L. Festinger.  A Theory of Social Comparison Processes , 1954 .

[23]  Paul Grossman,et al.  Respiratory and cardiac rhythms as windows to central and autonomic biobehavioral regulation: Selection of window frames, keeping the panes clean and viewing the neural topography , 1992, Biological Psychology.

[24]  Xiaolin Zhou,et al.  Conflict control during sentence comprehension: fMRI evidence , 2009, NeuroImage.

[25]  Raja Parasuraman,et al.  Three Experiments Examining the Use of Electroencephalogram, Event-Related Potentials, and Heart-Rate Variability for Real- Time Human-Centered Adaptive Automation Design , 2003 .

[26]  M. Lassonde,et al.  Nonlinear hemodynamic responses in human epilepsy: A multimodal analysis with fNIRS-EEG and fMRI-EEG , 2012, Journal of Neuroscience Methods.

[27]  James C. Christensen,et al.  The effects of day-to-day variability of physiological data on operator functional state classification , 2012, NeuroImage.

[28]  J. Beatty.  Task-evoked pupillary responses, processing load, and the structure of processing resources. , 1982, Psychological bulletin.

[29]  K. Hendy,et al.  Measuring Subjective Workload: When Is One Scale Better Than Many? , 1993 .

[30]  R. Ward,et al.  EMG and EOG artifacts in brain computer interface systems: A survey , 2007, Clinical Neurophysiology.

[31]  John Stewart,et al.  Demonstration of a Network-Centric Communication Management Suite , 2011 .

[32]  O. J. Harvey,et al.  Intergroup Conflict And Cooperation: The Robbers Cave Experiment , 2013 .

[33]  Dahai Liu,et al.  Effects of System Automation Management Strategies and Multi-mission Operator-to-vehicle Ratio on Operator Performance in UAV Systems , 2009, J. Intell. Robotic Syst..

[34]  A. H. Roscoe,et al.  Assessing Pilot Workload , 1978 .

[35]  Allen J. Rowe,et al.  Vigilant Spirit Control Station: A Research Testbed for Multi-UAS Supervisory Control Interfaces , 2009 .

[36]  D J McFarland,et al.  An EEG-based brain-computer interface for cursor control. , 1991, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[37]  B. Cain.  A Review of the Mental Workload Literature , 2007 .

[38]  H. Jasper.  Report of the committee on methods of clinical examination in electroencephalography , 1958 .

[39]  M. Pomplun,et al.  Pupil Dilation as an Indicator of Cognitive Workload in Human-Computer Interaction , 2003 .

[40]  Caroline Dussault,et al.  EEG and ECG changes during selected flight sequences. , 2004, Aviation, space, and environmental medicine.

[41]  Brian P. Bailey,et al.  Categories & Subject Descriptors: H.5.2 [Information , 2022 .

[42]  William R. Howse,et al.  Unmanned Aircraft Systems Selection Practices: Current Research and Future Directions , 2013 .

[43]  F. Thomas Eggemeier,et al.  Some Measurement and Methodological Considerations in the Application of Subjective Workload Measurement Techniques , 1995 .

[44]  Christian Kothe,et al.  Towards passive brain–computer interfaces: applying brain–computer interface technology to human–machine systems in general , 2011, Journal of neural engineering.

[45]  Sandra P. Marshall,et al.  Integrating psychophysiological measures of cognitive workload and eye movements to detect strategy shifts , 2003, 36th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2003. Proceedings of the.

[46]  C. Ring,et al.  The effects of competition and competitiveness on cardiovascular activity. , 2001, Psychophysiology.

[47]  Xavier Golay,et al.  IQ-Related fMRI Differences during Cognitive Set Shifting , 2009, Cerebral cortex.

[48]  M Congedo,et al.  A review of classification algorithms for EEG-based brain–computer interfaces , 2007, Journal of neural engineering.

[49]  Heath A. Ruff,et al.  Human Interaction with Levels of Automation and Decision-Aid Fidelity in the Supervisory Control of Multiple Simulated Unmanned Air Vehicles , 2002, Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments.

[50]  Glenn F. Wilson,et al.  Performance Enhancement in an Uninhabited Air Vehicle Task Using Psychophysiologically Determined Adaptive Aiding , 2007, Hum. Factors.

[51]  F. Thomas Eggemeier,et al.  Workload assessment methodology. , 1986 .

[52]  J. Stern,et al.  Eye movements and blinks: their relationship to higher cognitive processes. , 1989, International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology.

[53]  J. Caldwell,et al.  The Effects of 37 Hours of Continuous Wakefulness On the Physiological Arousal, Cognitive Performance, Self-Reported Mood, and Simulator Flight Performance of F-117A Pilots , 2004 .

[54]  Daphne N. Yu,et al.  High-resolution EEG mapping of cortical activation related to working memory: effects of task difficulty, type of processing, and practice. , 1997, Cerebral cortex.

[55]  Edward L. Deci,et al.  Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior , 1975, Perspectives in Social Psychology.

[56]  Mustapha Mouloua,et al.  Effects of Adaptive Task Allocation on Monitoring of Automated Systems , 1996, Hum. Factors.

[57]  G. Wilson.  Applied use of cardiac and respiration measures: Practical considerations and precautions , 1992, Biological Psychology.

[58]  Michelle N. Lumicao,et al.  EEG correlates of task engagement and mental workload in vigilance, learning, and memory tasks. , 2007, Aviation, space, and environmental medicine.

[59]  P. Jorna.  Spectral analysis of heart rate and psychological state: A review of its validity as a workload index , 1992, Biological Psychology.

[60]  W. Kirchner.  Age differences in short-term retention of rapidly changing information. , 1958, Journal of experimental psychology.

[61]  F. L. D. Silva,et al.  Event-related EEG/MEG synchronization and desynchronization: basic principles , 1999, Clinical Neurophysiology.

[62]  Glenn F. Wilson,et al.  An Analysis of Mental Workload in Pilots During Flight Using Multiple Psychophysiological Measures , 2002 .

[63]  Desney S. Tan,et al.  Feasibility and pragmatics of classifying working memory load with an electroencephalograph , 2008, CHI.

[64]  Glenn F. Wilson,et al.  Psychophysiological responses to changes in workload during simulated air traffic control , 1996, Biological Psychology.

[65]  Mark S. Young,et al.  Attention and automation: New perspectives on mental underload and performance , 2002 .