INTERACTIVE EFFECTS OF PHYSICAL AND MENTAL WORKLOAD ONSUBJECTIVE WORKLOAD ASSESSMENT

摘要

Relatively little research has investigated subjective workload assessment during tasks involving both physical and mental demands. Development of more comprehensive workload assessment tools depends on understanding the effects of physical and mental activity on an individual's perception of workload. This study investigated the interaction between the two types of demands and the potential effects of such interactions on subjective workload assessment and performance. Common subjective workload assessment tools (Borg CR-10 Scale, Visual Analog Scale, NASA Task Load Index) were used to record changes in perceived workload during varying levels of physical and mental demands. Thirteen participants completed all conditions with the results summarized to identify potential trends in the data. The results suggest that a physical demand component did not affect subjective mental workload assessment (p = 0.9916). In addition, the presence of mental demands did not affect physical workload assessment (p = 0.9183). High correlations were found between the subjective mental workload assessment scores and mental performance (r = -0.8 and -0.9).