Effect of Mental Workload on Heart Rate Variability and Reaction Time of Aircraft Maintenance Personnel

The sensitivity of mental workload measures is influenced by cultural and individual factors. One individual factor that is hypothesized to influence mental workload is time orientation. The aim of this study is to observe the influence of time orientation on temporal demand and subjective mental workload. One hundred and two participants representing three different time orientations, namely monochronic, neutral, and polychronic orientations, assessed using the Modified Polychronic Attitude Index 3 (MPAI3), voluntarily participated in this study. Participants were instructed to complete a search and count task in four different conditions with varying degrees of difficulty. Mental workload was assessed using subjective (NASA-TLX) and objective (heart rate variability, or HRV) methods and analyzed for each condition. The results show that, with comparable performance and comparable HRV, monochronic participants show higher sensitivity than neutral or polychronic participants in subjective mental workload, particularly the temporal demand dimension. The implications are discussed.

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On heart rate variability and respiration as indices of mental workload

The Japanese Journal of Ergonomics ◽

10.5100/jje.25.supplement_140 ◽

1989 ◽

Vol 25 (Supplement) ◽

pp. 140-141

Author(s):

M. Ohsuga ◽

F. Shimono ◽

C. Akashi

Keyword(s):

Heart Rate ◽

Heart Rate Variability ◽

Mental Workload

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Quantization of mental stress using various physiological markers

10.7287/peerj.preprints.777v1 ◽

2015 ◽

Author(s):

Apoorvagiri ◽

Mandya Sannegowda Nagananda ◽

Sandekere Tippeswamy Veerabhadrappa

Keyword(s):

Heart Rate ◽

Heart Rate Variability ◽

Reaction Time ◽

Simple Reaction Time ◽

Mental Stress ◽

Stroop Test ◽

Simple Reaction ◽

Study Materials ◽

Physiological Markers ◽

Accurate Quantification

The aim of this study is to quantize mental stress by integrating different physiological markers like reaction time, photoplethysmograph (PPG), heart rate variability (HRV) and subjective markers like questionnaire. The study included 10 subjects of age between 22 and 26 years. Study materials include the results of PSS questionnaire, simple reaction time, PPG data, HRV data during a stress inducing stroop test. The study suggests that mental stress can be quantized when stress is induced acquisitively and more accurate quantification of stress can be achieved by integrating many physiological parameters.

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245 VALIDATION OF SIMULATION-BASED TRAINING IN NEONATAL RESUSCITATION: USE OF HEART RATE VARIABILITY AS A MARKER FOR MENTAL WORKLOAD.

Journal of Investigative Medicine ◽

10.1136/jim-52-suppl1-245 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 52 (Suppl 1) ◽

pp. S122.2-S122 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

A. A. Murphy ◽

D. M. Kaegi ◽

R. Gobble ◽

A. Dubin ◽

S. K. Howard ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Heart Rate ◽

Heart Rate Variability ◽

Mental Workload ◽

Neonatal Resuscitation ◽

Simulation Based

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Prediction of Stress and Mental Workload during Police Academy Training Using Ultra-Short-Term Heart Rate Variability and Breathing Analysis

2020 42nd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine & Biology Society (EMBC) ◽

10.1109/embc44109.2020.9175414 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Abhishek Tiwari ◽

Raymundo Cassani ◽

Jean-Francois Gagnon ◽

Daniel Lafond ◽

Sebastien Tremblay ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Heart Rate ◽

Heart Rate Variability ◽

Mental Workload ◽

Police Academy ◽

Short Term ◽

Academy Training ◽

Police Academy Training

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Cardiovascular Biomarkers’ Inherent Timescales in Mental Workload Assessment During Simulated Air Traffic Control Tasks

Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback ◽

10.1007/s10484-020-09490-z ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Thea Radüntz ◽

Thorsten Mühlhausen ◽

Marion Freyer ◽

Norbert Fürstenau ◽

Beate Meffert

Keyword(s):

Heart Rate ◽

Heart Rate Variability ◽

Frequency Domain ◽

Traffic Control ◽

Work Experience ◽

Time Slot ◽

Mental Workload ◽

Air Traffic ◽

Band Ratio ◽

Cardiovascular Biomarkers

Abstract One central topic in ergonomics and human-factors research is the assessment of mental workload. Heart rate and heart rate variability are common for registering mental workload. However, a major problem of workload assessment is the dissociation among different workload measures. One potential reason could be the disregard of their inherent timescales and the interrelation between participants’ individual differences and timescales. The aim of our study was to determine if different cardiovascular biomarkers exhibit different timescales. We focused on air traffic controller and investigated biomarkers’ ability to distinguish between conditions with different load levels connected to prior work experience and different time slots. During an interactive real-time simulation, we varied the load situations with two independent variables: the traffic volume and the occurrence of a priority-flight request. Dependent variables for registering mental workload were the heart rate and heart rate variability from two time slots. Our results show that all cardiovascular biomarkers were sensitive to workload differences with different inherent timescales. The heart rate responded sooner than the heart rate variability features from the frequency domain and it was most indicative during the time slot immediately after the priority-flight request. The heart rate variability parameters from the frequency domain responded with latency and were most indicative during the subsequent time slot. Furthermore, by consideration of biomarkers’ inherent timescales, we were able to assess a significant effect of work experience on heart rate and mid/high frequency-band ratio of the heart rate variability. Results indicated that different cardiovascular biomarkers reveal different inherent timescales.

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