TY - JOUR
T1 - Optical brain monitoring for operator training and mental workload assessment
AU - Ayaz, Hasan
AU - Shewokis, Patricia A.
AU - Bunce, Scott
AU - Izzetoglu, Kurtulus
AU - Willems, Ben
AU - Onaral, Banu
N1 - Funding Information:
Authors gratefully acknowledge Prof. Raja Parasuraman for comments on the manuscript, Sehchang Hah, Atul Deshmukh for ATC data acquisition, Justin Menda, Murat Perit Cakir and Adrian Curtin for UAV data acquisition. This work was supported in part by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration through BAE Systems Technology Solutions Services Inc. under Primary Contract, DTFA01-00-C-00068 and Subcontract Number, 31–5029862. This investigation was in part funded under a U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity ; Cooperative Agreement W81XWH-08-2-0573 . The views, opinions, and/or findings contained in this article are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official views or policies, either expressed or implied, of the funding agencies.
PY - 2012/1/2
Y1 - 2012/1/2
N2 - An accurate measure of mental workload in human operators is a critical element of monitoring and adaptive aiding systems that are designed to improve the efficiency and safety of human-machine systems during critical tasks. Functional near infrared (fNIR) spectroscopy is a field-deployable non-invasive optical brain monitoring technology that provides a measure of cerebral hemodynamics within the prefrontal cortex in response to sensory, motor, or cognitive activation. In this paper, we provide evidence from two studies that fNIR can be used in ecologically valid environments to assess the: 1) mental workload of operators performing standardized (n-back) and complex cognitive tasks (air traffic control - ATC), and 2) development of expertise during practice of complex cognitive and visuomotor tasks (piloting unmanned air vehicles - UAV). Results indicate that fNIR measures are sensitive to mental task load and practice level, and provide evidence of the fNIR deployment in the field for its ability to monitor hemodynamic changes that are associated with relative cognitive workload changes of operators. The methods reported here provide guidance for the development of strategic requirements necessary for the design of complex human-machine interface systems and assist with assessments of human operator performance criteria.
AB - An accurate measure of mental workload in human operators is a critical element of monitoring and adaptive aiding systems that are designed to improve the efficiency and safety of human-machine systems during critical tasks. Functional near infrared (fNIR) spectroscopy is a field-deployable non-invasive optical brain monitoring technology that provides a measure of cerebral hemodynamics within the prefrontal cortex in response to sensory, motor, or cognitive activation. In this paper, we provide evidence from two studies that fNIR can be used in ecologically valid environments to assess the: 1) mental workload of operators performing standardized (n-back) and complex cognitive tasks (air traffic control - ATC), and 2) development of expertise during practice of complex cognitive and visuomotor tasks (piloting unmanned air vehicles - UAV). Results indicate that fNIR measures are sensitive to mental task load and practice level, and provide evidence of the fNIR deployment in the field for its ability to monitor hemodynamic changes that are associated with relative cognitive workload changes of operators. The methods reported here provide guidance for the development of strategic requirements necessary for the design of complex human-machine interface systems and assist with assessments of human operator performance criteria.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.06.023
DO - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.06.023
M3 - Article
C2 - 21722738
AN - SCOPUS:79960762620
SN - 1053-8119
VL - 59
SP - 36
EP - 47
JO - NeuroImage
JF - NeuroImage
IS - 1
ER -