A Neuroergonomics Approach to Mental Workload, Engagement and Human Performance Frédéric Dehais, Alex Lafont, Raphaëlle N
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A Neuroergonomics Approach to Mental Workload, Engagement and Human Performance Frédéric Dehais, Alex Lafont, Raphaëlle N. Roy, Stephen Fairclough To cite this version: Frédéric Dehais, Alex Lafont, Raphaëlle N. Roy, Stephen Fairclough. A Neuroergonomics Approach to Mental Workload, Engagement and Human Performance. Frontiers in Neuroscience, Frontiers, 2020, 14, pp.1-17. 10.3389/fnins.2020.00268. hal-02537107 HAL Id: hal-02537107 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02537107 Submitted on 8 Apr 2020 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. 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ISSN 1662-4548 Any correspondence concerning this service should be sent to the repository administrator: [email protected] fnins-14-00268 April 4, 2020 Time: 18:27 # 1 REVIEW published: 07 April 2020 doi: 10.3389/fnins.2020.00268 A Neuroergonomics Approach to Mental Workload, Engagement and Human Performance Frédéric Dehais1,2*, Alex Lafont1, Raphaëlle Roy1 and Stephen Fairclough3 1 ISAE-SUPAERO, Université de Toulouse, Toulouse, France, 2 School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, United States, 3 School of Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, United Kingdom The assessment and prediction of cognitive performance is a key issue for any discipline concerned with human operators in the context of safety-critical behavior. Most of the research has focused on the measurement of mental workload but this construct remains difficult to operationalize despite decades of research on the topic. Recent advances in Neuroergonomics have expanded our understanding of neurocognitive processes across different operational domains. We provide a framework to disentangle those neural mechanisms that underpin the relationship between task demand, arousal, mental workload and human performance. This approach advocates Edited by: targeting those specific mental states that precede a reduction of performance efficacy. Riccardo Poli, A number of undesirable neurocognitive states (mind wandering, effort withdrawal, University of Essex, United Kingdom perseveration, inattentional phenomena) are identified and mapped within a two- Reviewed by: Ranjana K. Mehta, dimensional conceptual space encompassing task engagement and arousal. We argue Texas A&M University, United States that monitoring the prefrontal cortex and its deactivation can index a generic shift Ryan McKendrick, from a nominal operational state to an impaired one where performance is likely to Northrop Grumman Corporation, United States degrade. Neurophysiological, physiological and behavioral markers that specifically *Correspondence: account for these states are identified. We then propose a typology of neuroadaptive Frédéric Dehais countermeasures to mitigate these undesirable mental states. [email protected]; [email protected] Keywords: neuroergonomics, performance prediction, degraded attentional and executive mental states, task engagement, mental workload Specialty section: This article was submitted to Neural Technology, INTRODUCTION a section of the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience A study of mental workload is fundamental to understanding the intrinsic limitations of the human Received: 11 December 2019 information processing system. This area of research is also crucial for investigation of complex Accepted: 10 March 2020 teaming relationships especially when interaction with technology necessitates multitasking or a Published: 07 April 2020 degree of cognitive complexity. Citation: Dehais F, Lafont A, Roy R and The Growth of Mental Workload Fairclough S (2020) A Mental workload has a long association with human factors research into safety-critical Neuroergonomics Approach to Mental Workload, Engagement performance (Moray, 1979; O’Donnell and Eggemeier, 1986; Hancock and Meshkati, 1988; and Human Performance. Hancock and Desmond, 2001; Wickens and Tsang, 2014; Young et al., 2015). Forty years have Front. Neurosci. 14:268. passed since the publication of the seminal collection edited by Moray(1979) and the study of doi: 10.3389/fnins.2020.00268 mental workload remains an active topic in contemporary human factors research; a keyword Frontiers in Neuroscience| www.frontiersin.org 1 April 2020| Volume 14| Article 268 fnins-14-00268 April 4, 2020 Time: 18:27 # 2 Dehais et al. A Neuroergonomics Approach to Performance search based on Google Scholar listed more than 200,000 articles abstract concept, loosely operationalized and supported by a published on the topic since 2000, see also Table 1 in Young et al. growing database of inconsistent findings (Van Acker et al., 2018). (2015). The significance of human mental workload for those The absence of a general explanatory model is complicated by technological trends that are forecast during the second machine the fact that mental workload, like stress and fatigue (Matthews, age (Brynjolfsson and McAfee, 2014) guarantees its importance 2002), is a transactional concept representing an interaction for human factors research in future decades. between the capacities of the individual and the specific demands The lineage of mental workload incorporates a number of of a particular task. Within this transactional framework, mental theoretical perspectives, some of which precede the formalization workload represents a confluence between inter-individual of the concept itself. Early work linking physiological activation sources of trait variability (e.g., skill, IQ, personality), intra- to the prediction of performance (Yerkes and Dodson, 1908; individual variation (e.g., emotional states, motivation, fatigue), Duffy, 1962) was formalized into an energetical model of and the specific configuration of the task under investigation (see attentional resources (Kahneman, 1973) that emphasized a also Table 2 in Van Acker et al., 2018). dynamic relationship between finite information processing For the discipline of human factors, the study of mental capacity and variable cognitive demands (Norman and Bobrow, workload serves two primary functions: (a) to quantify the 1975; Navon and Gopher, 1979; Wickens, 1980). The descriptive transaction between operators and a range of task demands quality of the early work on attentional resources was sharpened or technological systems or operational protocols, and (b) by cognitive models of control (Broadbent, 1971; Schneider to predict the probability of performance impairment during et al., 1984; Shallice and Burgess, 1993). Hybrid frameworks operational scenarios, which may be safety-critical. One challenge that place cognitive processes within a resource framework facing the field is delineating a consistent relationship between have been hugely influential in the field, such as the multiple mental workload measurement and performance quality on resource model (Wickens, 1984, 2002, 2008; Wickens and the basis of complex interactions between the person and the Liu, 1988) whereas others introduced agentic features, such task. The second challenge pertains to the legacy and utility of as dynamic self-regulation and adaptation, within models of limited capacity of resources as a framework for understanding human performance (Hockey et al., 1986; Hockey, 1997). For those interactions. instance, Hancock and Warm(1989)’s dynamic adaptive theory In the following sections, we detail some limitations of mental (DAT) postulates that the brain seeks resource homeostasis resources and advocate the adoption of a neuroergonomic and cognitive comfort. However, environmental stressors can approach (Sarter and Sarter, 2003; Parasuraman and Rizzo, 2008; progressively shift individual’s adaptive abilities from stability Parasuraman and Wilson, 2008; Mehta and Parasuraman, to instability depending on one’s cognitive and psychological 2013; Ayaz and Dehais, 2018) for the study of mental resources. The DAT is an extension of the Yerkes and Dodson workload and human performance. The neuroergonomic inverted-U law, in a sense that very low (hypostress) and framework emphasizes a shift from limited cognitive resources very high (hyperstress) task demands can both degrade the to characterizing impaired human performance and associated adaptability and consequently impair performance. All these states with respect to neurobiological mechanisms. perspectives are united by a characterization of the human information processing system as a finite resource with limited capacity (Kramer and Spinks, 1991). Toward a Limit of the Theory of Limited Resources Mental