Abstract
Mental workload is an important construct in psychology. Using various methods, researchers have investigated ways to reduce the amount of workload imposed on system operators. Reducing workload through system design might be facilitated by identifying required cognitive resources and designing the system so that tasking does not impose resource conflict which may cause a decrement in performance. Wickens' multipleresource theory has expanded on the three stages of processing (encoding, centralprocessing, and responding) to include cognitive resources, such as visual/spatial encoding, spatial/abstract processing, and manual discrete and non-discrete responding resources which are identified in this model. This study represents a first step towards building a research paradigm in which the amount of resource conflict (resulting in performance decrements) is estimated by taxing multiple resources simultaneously.
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