Amongst the many tasks in our lives, we encounter web forms on a regular basis, whether they are mundane like registering for a website, or complex and important like tax returns. There are many aspects of Usability, but one concern for user interfaces is to reduce mental workload and error rates. Whilst most assessment of mental workload is subjective and retrospective reporting by users, we e...

This study sought to examine the effect of helmet weight on cognitive performance and mental workload. Twenty participants were studied in three one-hour sessions. The participants were asked to read and work with computer under three conditions: while wearing no helmets, while wearing a helmet that weighed 800 g (A), and while wearing a helmet weighing 1500 g (B). “N-back” task and Continuous ...

There is considerable evidence in the ergonomics literature that automation can significantly reduce operator mental workload. Furthermore, reducing mental workload is not necessarily a good thing, particularly in cases where the level is already manageable. This raises the issue of mental underload, which can be at least as detrimental to performance as overload. However, although it is widely...

This paper describes an experimental study concerning an evaluation of advanced driving-assistance systems using methods for estimating workload levels. The effects of such systems on drivers’ mental workload and driving performance were measured experimentally using the driving simulator. Six subjects were instructed to drive the simulator in a highway environment with and without Adaptive Cru...

OBJECTIVES In the occupational health field, it is important to know how workload influences mental health. Overtime work and job strain appear to affect the mental health status of workers. Sense of coherence (SOC) may mediate the relationship between work stress and mental health. Since SOC represents a personal ability to manage psychological stressors, we hypothesized that a strong SOC woul...

A new multidimensional subjective workload assessment instrument -- Workload Profile -- was introduced and evaluated against two unidimensional instruments -- Bedford and Psychophysical scaling. Subjects performed two laboratory tasks separately (single task) and simultaneously (dual task). The multidimensional procedure compared well with the unidimensional procedures in terms of sensitivity t...

Modeling and predicting age differences in driver mental workload and performance may help the invehicle system design to reduce or prevent information overloading on older drivers. However, few computational models exist that account for age differences in mental workload. We propose a new computational modeling approach to model workload and performance—a queuing network approach based on que...

The primary goal of this study was the assessment of maritime operators’ mental workload in simulation scenarios designed for containing typical traffic situations to be handled by officers during usual routine ship navigation. Taskload was manipulated throughout the sessions to analyse changes in ocular activity during complexity peaks. Specifically, it was tested the viability of implementing...