The Development and Application of a Novel Physiological Metric of Cognitive Workload

An objective assessment of the cognitive burden imposed by a task (cognitive workload) is of fundamental interest in that it would provide a “window” into one’s current allocation of cognitive resources. Such insight would have tremendous implications in maximizing human performance through a multitude of applications including human-computer interaction. The authors propose a novel, electroencephalographic (EEG)-derived metric, which relies on the event-related potential (ERP) component, novelty-P3. A theoretical rationale and experimental evidence supporting the metric’s utility are provided, followed by future directions.

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