Power law model for subjective mental workload and validation through air traffic control human-in-the-loop simulation

AbstractWe provide evidence for a power law relationship between the subjective one-dimensional Instantaneous Self Assessment workload measure (five-level ISA-WL scale) and the radio communication of air traffic controllers (ATCOs) as an objective task load variable. It corresponds to Stevens ’ classical psychophysics relationship between physical stimulus and subjective response, with characteristic power law exponent γ of the order of 1. The theoretical model was validated in a human-in-the loop air traffic control simulation experiment with traffic flow as environmental stimulus th at correlates positively with ATCOs frequency and duration of radio calls (task load, RC-TL) and their reported ISA-WL. The theoretical predictions together with nonlinear regression-based model parameter estimates expand previously published results that quantified the formal logistic relationship between the subjective ISA measure and simulated air traffic flow (Fürstenau et al. in Theor Issues Ergon Sci 21(6): 684–708, 2020). The present analysis refers to a psychophysics approach to mental workload suggested by (Gopher and Braune in Hum Factors 26(5): 519–532, 1984) that was recently used by (Bachelder and Godfroy-Cooper in Pilot workload esimation: synthesis of spectral requirements analysis and Weber's law, SCL Tech, San Diego, 2019) for pilot workload estimation, with a corresponding power law exponent in the typical range of Stevens’ exponents. Based on the hypothesis of c ogni...
Source: Cognition, Technology and Work - Category: Information Technology Source Type: research