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Abstract

The present study examined the utility of Sanders' (1983) cognitive-energetic model of multiple levels of attentional mechanisms for predicting physiological, performance, and subjective responses to manipulations of computational demand. Sanders' (1983) model provides a theoretical basis that can account for the relations between measures of mental workload. According to the model, the computational processing level consists of serial information processing stages that transform a stimulus and produce a response, whereas, the energetic resource level regulates physiological state and supplies the computational processing level with energetic resources. Associations and dissociations among psychophysiological measures are predicted to occur because central nervous system measures are assumed to be sensitive to computational processing, whereas, autonomic nervous system measures are assumed to be sensitive to energetic resources and only indirectly to computational processing. Further, reaction time is expected to be correlated with central measures, whereas, subjective rating is expected to be correlated with autonomic measures. The observed patterns of associations and dissociations are discussed within the context of Sanders' (1983) model.

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Relations among Multiple Workload Measure during a Memory Task

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