Wb. Verwey et Ha. Veltman, DETECTING SHORT PERIODS OF ELEVATED WORKLOAD - A COMPARISON OF 9 WORKLOAD ASSESSMENT TECHNIQUES, Journal of experimental psychology. Applied, 2(3), 1996, pp. 270-285
The present experiment tested the merits of 9 common workload assessme
nt techniques with relatively short periods of workload in a car-drivi
ng task. Twelve participants drove an instrumented car and performed a
visually loading task and a mentally loading task for 10, 30, and 60
s. The results show that 10-s periods of visual and mental workload ca
n be measured successfully with subjective ratings and secondary task
performance. With respect to longer loading periods (30 and 60 s), ste
ering frequency was found to be sensitive to visual workload, and skin
conductance response (SCR) was sensitive to mental workload. The resu
lts lead to preliminary guidelines that will help applied researchers
to determine which techniques are best suited for assessing visual and
mental workload.