Workload assessment for mental arithmetic tasks using the task-evoked pupillary response
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Human-Computer Interaction
- Keywords
- pupillometry, human factors, pupil diameter, cognitive load
- Copyright
- © 2015 Marquart et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2015. Workload assessment for mental arithmetic tasks using the task-evoked pupillary response. PeerJ PrePrints 3:e1105v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.1105v1
Abstract
Pupillometry is a promising method for assessing mental workload and could be helpful in the optimization of systems that involve human-computer interaction. The present study focuses on replicating the pupil diameter study by Ahern (1978) for mental multiplications of varying difficulty, using an automatic remote eye tracker. Our results showed that the findings of Ahern were replicated and that the mean pupil diameter and mean pupil diameter change (MPDC) discriminated just as well between the three difficulty levels as did a self-report questionnaire of mental workload (NASA-TLX). A higher mean blink rate was observed during the multiplication period for the highest level of difficulty in comparison with the other two levels. Moderate to strong correlations were found between the MPDC and the proportion of incorrect responses, indicating that the MPDC was higher for participants with a lower performance. For practical applications, validity could be improved by combining pupillometry with other physiological techniques.
Author Comment
This is a submission to PeerJ Computer Science for review.