Effects of Task Demand and Time-on-Task on Psychophysiological Candidates for Biocybernetic Control

Abstract

Biocybernetic control refers the use of psychophysiology as a real-time input to a computerised system. Psychophysiology may be used to monitor relevant variables such as subjective mental workload in order to drive the control of adaptive automation. This study was concerned with the sensitivity and diagnosticity of psychophysiological measures to subjective mental workload and time-on-task. Thirty participants performed the Multi-Attribute Test Battery (MATB) for a period of sixty-four minutes. The results revealed an augmentation of in conjunction with a suppression of α activity from parietal sites in response to high workload. In addition, heart rate, vagal tone and blink duration were sensitive to mental workload. The implications for the selection of psychophysiological variables for biocybernetic control are discussed.

Keywords

Psychophysiology Adaptive Automation Mental Workload

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