Mental workload

Mental workload 

        Mental workload : the demands in the relation to the amount of resources the operator is willing or able to allocate .

Integration of 2 models :

• Mental (information processing or computational effort - task
• Body ( physiological energetical resources - state )

        High mental workload job include : air traffic control / nuclear power plant operator / pilot / military command & control / anesthesiologist

        Factor affecting workload : driver state affecting factor / environmental factor / driver trait factors

1. Underload : sufficiently frequent , but simple narrow requirements
2. Overload : time pressure , mental requirements are too frequent

        Low arousal have low performance , moderate arousal have high performance , over arousal have low performance .

        Manage the mental workload : reduce scope of work / increase scope of work , so you can reduction of task / make the task easier / job rotation or job enlargement / job enrichment or group work .

           Assessment of mental workload 

1.   Subjective measurement 

• RSME : rating scare mental effort ( self-report )
• SWAT : subjective workload assessment technique
• NASA-TLX rating scale
• Cooper Harper scale 

2. Performance measures

• Primary-task measures
• Secondary-task measures
• Reference task

3. Physiological measures 

• Central nervous system ( CNS ) measures and peripheral nervous system measures
• Cardiac functions 

1. Task—attention responsibility
2. Work organization—deadline variation of task
3. Social relation—feedback status
4. Working environment—noise room climate

How to measure the mental workload assessment ?

1. Physiological measures : heart rate / eye fixation 

     2.  Performance measures  : primary-task measures / second-task measures  

Analytic models for mental workload study :

• Time-line analysis

• Segment analysis

Crossed wire (Lose situation awareness)

        Three primary factors : distraction / time pressure / breaking habit patterns

        Unacceptable use of mobile phones when doing critical tasks , interruptions from people that really don`t need to be talking to you at the time ; Distractions from family , all of the sudden you are going to pick up the stress of you worrying about what`s going on at home and even less likely to focus on the job

        We have outcomes that have to be delivered in a set time and time pressure is a prevalent part , but most of people don`t care and realizing his wrong .

        You have to be instilling the right habit patterns from your people from the moment they walk into an organization .

        Where you`ve just got to deliver output , you should consider is the A-team , the go-to someone-you go straight to them , they get the job done .

        Early thing be slightly out of point and somebody has missed that or has decided to ignore that very early on , and as a result of them doing that , then the second incident will happen , which is then compounded , and then a third incident will happen and slowly it`s the sequence of all of these worsening incidents that finally causes something that can be extremely serious or fatal  .

Maintainers : 

    1.  Shifwork ( circadian desynchronisation ) : just give some thought on the impact of shift work over the longer term

• What time of day is it ?
• How long has it been since you`ve slept ?
• Have you built up a sleep debt the previous day ?

    2.  Support pattern  : care of when it comes to doing tasks , what you`ve got to be aware of is you won`t realize how your judgement and decision making has been eroded , need good risk controls and basically risk-mitigate skills .

    3.  Avoid potential problems with fatigue and errors that may occur as a result ( cooperation )