Engineering Systems and Environment, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA.
Industrial Engineering and Management, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon.
IISE Trans Occup Ergon Hum Factors. 2020 Apr-Jun;8(2):72-87. doi: 10.1080/24725838.2020.1770898. Epub 2020 Jun 12.
Complex and dynamic environments including military operations, healthcare, aviation, and driving require operators to transition seamlessly between levels of mental workload. However, little is known about how the rate of an increase in workload impacts multitasking performance, especially in the context of real-world tasks. We evaluated both gradual and sudden workload increases in the dynamic multitasking environment of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) command and control testbed and compared them to constant workload. Workload transitions were found to improve response time and accuracy compared to when workload was held constant at low or high. These results suggest that workload transitions may allow operators to better regulate mental resources. These findings can also inform the design of operations and technology to assist operators' management of cognitive resources, which include negating the adverse effects of vigilance decrements during low workload periods and data overload during high workload periods.
复杂和动态的环境，包括军事行动、医疗保健、航空和驾驶，都要求操作人员能够在不同的心理工作负荷水平之间无缝切换。然而，对于工作负荷增加的速度如何影响多任务处理性能，特别是在实际任务的背景下，我们知之甚少。我们评估了在无人机 (UAV) 指挥和控制试验台的动态多任务环境中逐渐增加和突然增加的工作负荷，并将其与恒定的工作负荷进行了比较。与低或高工作负荷下保持不变相比，工作负荷的转变被发现可以提高响应时间和准确性。这些结果表明，工作负荷的转变可能允许操作人员更好地调节心理资源。这些发现还可以为操作和技术的设计提供信息，以帮助操作人员管理认知资源，包括在低工作负荷期间消除警戒减退的不利影响，以及在高工作负荷期间消除数据过载的不利影响。
