Recognition of the Mental Workloads of Pilots in the Cockpit Using EEG Signals

The commercial flightdeck is a naturally multi-tasking work environment, one in which interruptions are frequent come in various forms, contributing in many cases to aviation incident reports. Automatic characterization of pilots' workloads is essential to preventing these kind of incidents. In...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Hernández-Sabaté, Aura|||0000-0003-1563-9934, Yauri Vidalón, José Elías|||0000-0001-6287-7797, Folch, Pau, Piera, Miquel Àngel|||0000-0002-7227-7944, Gil, Debora|||0000-0002-2770-4767
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2022
País:España
Institución:Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Repositorio:Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ddd.uab.cat:256272
Acceso en línea:https://ddd.uab.cat/record/256272
https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.3390/app12052298
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Cognitive states
Mental workload
EEG analysis
Neural networks
Multimodal data fusion
Descripción
Sumario:The commercial flightdeck is a naturally multi-tasking work environment, one in which interruptions are frequent come in various forms, contributing in many cases to aviation incident reports. Automatic characterization of pilots' workloads is essential to preventing these kind of incidents. In addition, minimizing the physiological sensor network as much as possible remains both a challenge and a requirement. Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals have shown high correlations with specific cognitive and mental states, such as workload. However, there is not enough evidence in the literature to validate how well models generalize in cases of new subjects performing tasks with workloads similar to the ones included during the model's training. In this paper, we propose a convolutional neural network to classify EEG features across different mental workloads in a continuous performance task test that partly measures working memory and working memory capacity. Our model is valid at the general population level and it is able to transfer task learning to pilot mental workload recognition in a simulated operational environment.