Use of wearable physiological sensors to predict cognitive workload in a visuospatial learning task.

Background: Increased cognitive workload, sometimes known as mental strain or mental effort, has been associated with reduced performance.

Objective: The use of physiological monitoring was investigated to predict cognitive workload and performance.

Methods: Twenty-one participants completed a 10-minute seated rest, a visuospatial learning task modeled after crane operation, and the Stroop test, an assessment that measures cognitive interference.

Data-Driven Estimation of the Impact of Diversions Due to In-Flight Medical Emergencies on Flight Delay and Aircraft Operating Costs.

In-flight medical emergencies (IFMEs) average 1 of every 604 flights and are expected to increase as the population ages and air travel increases. Flight diversions, or the rerouting of a flight to an alternate destination, occur in 2 to 13% of IFME cases, but may or may not be necessary as determined after the fact. Estimating the effect of IFME diversions compared to nonmedical diversions can be expected to improve our understanding of their impact and allow for more appropriate decision making during IFMEs.

Medical error and human factors engineering: where are we now?

The goal of human factors engineering is to optimize the relationship between humans and systems by studying human behavior, abilities, and limitations and using this knowledge to design systems for safe and effective human use. With the assumption that the human component of any system will inevitably produce errors, human factors engineers design systems and human/machine interfaces that are robust enough to reduce error rates and the effect of the inevitable error within the system. In this article, we review the extent and nature of medical error and then discuss human factors engineering tools that have potential applicability.

Effects of image scale and system time delay on simulator sickness within head-coupled virtual environments.

Novel patterns of visual-vestibular intersensory stimulation often result in symptoms of simulator sickness, raising health and safety concerns regarding virtual environment exposure. Two experiments investigated the effect of conflicting visual-vestibular cues on subjective reports of simulator sickness during and after a 50-min exposure to a head-coupled virtual interface. Virtual image scale factors (0.

In search of an inherent ordering of vowel phonemes, or do pilots hear like engineers do?

To test the hypothesis that formant frequencies might provide an inherent ordering scheme for vowel sounds, two groups of subjects were asked to place six Italian vowel phonemes (A, O, U, AE, E, and I) into the most musically pleasing order. A subsequent chi 2 analysis of selections of the first group (21 music students and engineers) indicated a reliable consistency in vowel order supporting the hypothesis. Analysis of the second group (12 pilots) did not indicate any consistent ordering.

The effects of spot treatments on performance in a driving simulator under sober and alcohol-dosed conditions.

Accident studies have identified nighttime conditions on rural roads as particular problems for alcohol-impaired drivers. Uneventful driving is hypothesized to result in progressive degradation of tracking performance and a reduced ability to handle the demands of hazardous locations, such as curves. To address these problems, four spot treatments (i.

Curve negotiation performance in a driving simulator as a function of curve geometry.

A study was conducted to investigate driver performance on curves. The between-trial factors were Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) level (0.00, 0.

Effects of pyridostigmine bromide on in-flight aircrew performance.

The effects of a chemical defense pretreatment drug, pyridostigmine bromide (PB), on in-flight aircrew performance were assessed using the Total In-Flight Simulator (TIFS) aircraft. TIFS was used to supply appropriate control dynamics, handling characteristics, and cockpit instrumentation for a tactical transport airdrop simulation. Twenty-one C-130 pilots flew two familiarization and four data flights.

The effects of task performance on ocular accommodation and perceived size.

Two studies were conducted to test the hypothesis that performance of cognitive tasks tends to induce outward shifts in ocular accommodation that, in turn, result in changes in perceived size. In the first study, 12 subjects participated in each of 4 conditions; rest or performance of a running-memory task each with either visual or auditory stimuli. In each condition, subjects made four size judgments and their mean accommodation was measured using an infrared optometer.

Ocular accommodation, personality, and autonomic balance.

The autonomic nervous system is made up of two subsystems: the parasympathetic (PNS) and the sympathetic (SNS). The balance between these systems regulates bodily functions during routine (PNS-dominant) and crisis (SNS-dominant) situations. It may also control visual accommodation: PNS activation for inward focus, and SNS activation for outward focus.

Differences among myopes, emmetropes, and hyperopes.

One hundred fifty-two military recruits were classified as myopes, emmetropes, or hyperopes based on their measured farpoint. Height, weight, education, personality scores from the three scales of the Eysenck Personality Inventory, heart rate variability, autonomic nervous system indices, nearpoint, and dark focus were recorded for each subject. These were compared among groups using one-way analyses of variance and four discriminant analyses.

Individual differences in Pollyannaism.

The Pollyanna Principle states that people process pleasant information more accurately and efficiently than less pleasant information. This study examined whether different measures of Pollyanna tendencies are correlated with each other. Fourteen measures of Pollyannaism were derived for 133 students.