TY - GEN
T1 - Assessing the impact of cognitive assistants on mental workload in simple tasks
AU - Maier, Torsten
AU - Donghia, Vincent
AU - Chen, Chaoran
AU - Menold, Jessica
AU - McComb, Christopher
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported with funding from the School of Engineering Design, Technology, and Professional Programs at The Pennsylvania State University.
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2019 ASME.
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - Cognitive assistants, such as Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa, are increasingly becoming routine elements of our daily lives, yet the effects of such devices on the humans using them has been largely unstudied. While much research has proposed new intelligent systems for specific contexts, few studies have characterized the dynamics between cognitive assistants and humans. In an effort to address this gap, this research study investigates the effect of cognitive assistants on mental workload. Participants perform the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task while working with a fake cognitive assistant (Mary) and concurrently completing a secondary speed and accuracy test. Performance with the cognitive assistant was found to be higher but with no significant difference in mental workload. Participants working with the cognitive assistant were found to be less frustrated than those completing the task without it.
AB - Cognitive assistants, such as Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa, are increasingly becoming routine elements of our daily lives, yet the effects of such devices on the humans using them has been largely unstudied. While much research has proposed new intelligent systems for specific contexts, few studies have characterized the dynamics between cognitive assistants and humans. In an effort to address this gap, this research study investigates the effect of cognitive assistants on mental workload. Participants perform the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task while working with a fake cognitive assistant (Mary) and concurrently completing a secondary speed and accuracy test. Performance with the cognitive assistant was found to be higher but with no significant difference in mental workload. Participants working with the cognitive assistant were found to be less frustrated than those completing the task without it.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85076442585&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1115/DETC2019-97543
DO - 10.1115/DETC2019-97543
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85076442585
T3 - Proceedings of the ASME Design Engineering Technical Conference
BT - 31st International Conference on Design Theory and Methodology
PB - American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)
T2 - ASME 2019 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, IDETC-CIE 2019
Y2 - 18 August 2019 through 21 August 2019
ER -