Evaluation of a Dry Electrode System for Electroencephalography: Applications for Psychophysiological Cognitive Workload Assessment

Abstract

Advances in state-of-the-art dry electrode technology have led to the development of a novel dry electrode system for electroencephalography (QUASAR, Inc.; San Diego, California, USA). While basic systems-level testing and comparison of this dry electrode system to conventional wet electrode systems has proved to be very favorable, very limited data has been collected that demonstrates the ability of QUASAR's dry electrode system to replicate results produced in more applied, dynamic testing environments that may be used for human factors applications. In this study, QUASAR's dry electrode headset was used in combination with traditional wet electrodes to determine the ability of the dry electrode system to accurately differentiate between varying levels of cognitive workload. Results show that the accuracy in cognitive workload assessment obtained with wet electrodes is comparable to that obtained with the dry electrodes.