Sensitive and Diagnostic Mental Workload Classifier

We shall continue to develop a sensitive and selective mental workload assessment software, called PHYSIOPRINT (Physiology and Performance Research Integration Tool), that derives the workload measures in real time from multiple physiological signals (EEG, EKG, EOG, EMG) acquired by our wearable and wireless devices and processed with a suite of proprietary real-time algorithms. PHYSIOPRINT is designed around the IMPRINT model of mental workload and will ultimately discriminate between seven workload types (visual, auditory, cognitive, speech, tactile, fine and gross motor). PHYSIOPRINT will additionally provide a composite measure of overall workload construed to account for potential conflicts between different types of workload. Phase I research proved feasibility of the concept and defined the high level system architecture. Phase II research will focus on creation of the full product (software package for automated classification of mental workload) based on the Phase I concept design, and will include extensive validation studies on a large number (N = 200) volunteers in realistically simulated environments (driving and flight simulator) as well as in a real military-relevant environment (fully instrumented HMMWV).