TY - JOUR
T1 - Investigating mental workload across task modalities
T2 - a multimodal analysis using pupillometry
AU - Dhengre, Snehal
AU - Rothrock, Ling
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - Understanding mental workload is challenging due to its multidimensional nature and varying sensitivities of its primary measures: task performance, perceived workload, and physiological responses. This study investigates the effects of task load on performance, perceived workload, and pupil measures across different information modalities. A within-subjects experiment involving three tasks (digit span, matrix span, and dual n-back) was conducted with three task load levels. Workload measures included accuracy/sensitivity, reaction time, NASA-TLX, peak pupil diameter, and peak pupil latency. Consistent patterns of associations between task load and these workload measures were found across the three modalities. Workload measures revealed a nuanced interplay between task modality and task load. Robustness of peak pupil latency, accuracy, and NASA-TLX was highlighted across verbal and visual modalities, while peak pupil diameter showed a weaker impact with differences between modalities. The findings encourage multivariate assessment of mental workload to account for different task modalities.
AB - Understanding mental workload is challenging due to its multidimensional nature and varying sensitivities of its primary measures: task performance, perceived workload, and physiological responses. This study investigates the effects of task load on performance, perceived workload, and pupil measures across different information modalities. A within-subjects experiment involving three tasks (digit span, matrix span, and dual n-back) was conducted with three task load levels. Workload measures included accuracy/sensitivity, reaction time, NASA-TLX, peak pupil diameter, and peak pupil latency. Consistent patterns of associations between task load and these workload measures were found across the three modalities. Workload measures revealed a nuanced interplay between task modality and task load. Robustness of peak pupil latency, accuracy, and NASA-TLX was highlighted across verbal and visual modalities, while peak pupil diameter showed a weaker impact with differences between modalities. The findings encourage multivariate assessment of mental workload to account for different task modalities.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85206907564&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85206907564&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/00140139.2024.2414203
DO - 10.1080/00140139.2024.2414203
M3 - Article
C2 - 39413169
AN - SCOPUS:85206907564
SN - 0014-0139
JO - Ergonomics
JF - Ergonomics
ER -