USING OUTPUTS OF NASA-TLX FOR BUILDING A MENTAL WORKLOAD EXPERT SYSTEM

Abstract

In this study, we evaluate the effect of demographic factors such as age, gender, marital status, and education level on mental workload of TEYDEB’s (Technology & Innovation Grant Programs Directorate) experts working in basic stages of R&D projects evaluation activities. One of the workload measurement techniques, NASA-TLX is chosen since it is the most convenient measurement technique for the experiment groups used in this study. We make statistical analyses to measure the effectiveness of 6 scales used in NASA-TLX for evaluating the subjective mental workload of TEYDEB’s experts. In the second phase of the study, output of NASA-TLX is used by AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) and TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solutions) methods to construct an expert system for choosing an executive expert from TEYDEB’s expert pool.

Keywords

• Mental workload
• NASA-TLX
• AHP
• TOPSIS

References

1. Aidan, B., Tweed, N. and Halligan, C., "A pilot study of the mental workload of objective structured clinical examination examiners." Medical education 48(3): 262- 267, (2014).
2. Bhushan, N., and Kanwal, R., Strategic Decision Making: Applying the Analytic Hierarchy Process, Springer-Verlag, London, (2004).
3. Ericsson, K. A., Simon, H. A., “Verbal reports as data”, Psychological Review, 87(3): 215-251, (1980).
4. Finomore, S., et al. "Viewing the Workload of Vigilance Through the Lenses of the NASA-TLX and the MRQ." Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 55(6):1044-1063 (2013).
5. George, L. et al. “Combining Brain-Computer Interfaces and Haptics: Detecting Mental Workload to Adapt Haptic Assistance”, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 7282: 124-135, (2012).
6. Hart, S.C., Staveland, L.E. Development of a multi- dimensional workload rating scale: result of empirical and theoretical research, Handcock, P.A., Meshkati, N. (Ed.), Human Mental Workload, Elseiver, Netherlands, (1988).
7. Hart, S. G. “NASA-Task Load Index (NASA-TLX); 20 Years Later”. In Human Factor and Ergonomics Society Annual 50(9):904–908, (2006). General
8. sessions Hertzum, M., Holmegaard, K.D., “Perceived Time as a Measure of Mental Workload: Effects of Time Constraints and Task Success”, International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 29(1): 26-39, (2013).

9. Hill, S.G., Byers, J.C., Zaklad, A.L., & Christ, R.E. Subjective workload assessment during 48 continuous hours of LOS – F – H operations. In Proceedings of the Human Factors Society 33rd Annual Meeting, 1129– 1133, Santa Monica, USA. (1992).
10. Hwang, C.L., Lai, Y.J., Liu, T.Y., “A new approach for multiple objective decision making”, Computers and Operational Research, 20: 889–899, (1993).
11. Kajiwara, S., "Evaluation of driver’s mental workload by facial temperature and electrodermal activity under simulated driving conditions." International Journal of Automotive Technology 15(1): 65-70 (2014).
12. Maior, Horia A., et al. "Continuous Detection of Workload
13. Contemporary Ergonomics and Human Factors 2014: Proceedings of the international conference on Ergonomics & Human Factors 2014, Southampton, UK, 7-10 April 2014. CRC Press, (2014).
14. Approach." Nisbett, R. E., Wilson T. D., “Telling more than we can know: Verbal
15. Psychological Review, 84(3): 231-259, (1977). on mental
16. processes”, Rubio et al., S. Rubio, E. Díaz, J. Martín, “Evaluation of subjective mental workload: a comparison of SWAT, NASA-TLX, and workload profile methods”, Appl. Psychol. Int. Rev., 53(1):61–86 (2004).
17. Saaty, T. L., “Decision making with the analytic hierarchy process”, Int. J. Services Sciences, 1(1): 83– 97, (2008).
18. Saaty, T. L., “How to make a decision: The Analytic Hierarchy Process”, European Journal of Operational Research, 48; 9-26, (1990).
19. Salvucci D.D., Bogunovich P., “Multitasking and monotasking: the effects of mental workload on deferred task interruptions”, Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, April 10-15, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, (2010).
20. Shu, M., Using Heart Rate and Temperature at Nose Tip Detect Mental Workload of Assembling Scaffold, Master Thesis, Construction Engineering Department, China, 01-10 (2012).
21. S. Miller., “Literature Review: Workload Measures”, University of Iowa Document (ID: N01-006) (2001).
22. Tian, Yu, Shanguang Chen, and Chunhui Wang. "Applying the Analytical Hierarchy Process to the development of a subjective workload rating scale." System Science and Engineering (ICSSE), 2012 International Conference on. IEEE, 2012.
23. Vidulich, Michael A., and Pamela S. Tsang. "Absolute magnitude
24. approaches to subjective workload assessment." and estimation relative
25. judgement Target Identification”, Acta Aeronautica et Astronautica Sinica, 28: 1616-1620, (2007).