BIOCYBERNETIC INDICANTS OF WORKLOAD

GRADUAL PROGRESS HAS BEEN ACHIEVED IN USING AS WORKLOAD INDICATORS A VARIETY OF ELECTROPHYSIOLOGICAL TECHNIQUES, INCLUDING EEG AND NEURAL EVOKED POTENTIALS. THESE TECHNIQUES TEND TO BE INTRUSIVE, RELATIVELY ARTIFICIAL, AND NON-PORTABLE. THERE MAY BE MORE READILY OBTAINABLE MEASURES THAT CAN SERVE AS SIMPLE EXTERNAL INDICANTS OF NEURAL ACTIVITY, BROADENING THE ABILITY TO CAPTURE CNS-RELATED VARIANCE IN APPLIED WORKLOAD ASSESSMENT. WE PROPOSE TO MONITOR EYE MOVEMENT VELOCITY AS SUCH AN ALTERNATIVE INDEX. THESE MEASURES ARE AS UNOBTRUSIVE AS EEG, ARE KNOWN TO REFLECT NEUROLOGICAL EVENTS, AND HAVE GREATER FACE VALIDITY AND SPECIFICITY FOR MANY TASKS THAN DO MORE GLOBAL CNS MEASURES. INITIAL EXPERIMENTS WILL EXAMINE EYE MOVEMENT VELOCITY DURING AN AUDITORY VIGILANCE TASK AND A VISUAL MOTOR PERFORMANCE TASK UNDER OPTIMAL (RESTED) AND DEGRADED (SLEEP DEPRIVED) CONDITIONS, WITH EXPERIMENTAL VARIATION OF TASK COMPLEXITY (WORKLOAD).