title: Respiratory sinus arrhythmia as a measure of cognitive workload.
abstract: The current standard for measuring cognitive workload is the NASA Task-load Index (TLX) questionnaire. Although this measure has a high degree of reliability, diagnosticity, and sensitivity, a reliable physiological measure of cognitive workload could provide a non-invasive, objective measure of workload that could be tracked in real or near real-time without interrupting the task. This study investigated changes in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) during seven different sub-sections of a proposed selection test for Navy aviation and compared them to changes reported on the NASA-TLX. 201 healthy participants performed the seven tasks of the Navy's Performance Based Measure. RSA was measured during each task and the NASA-TLX was administered after each task. Multi-level modeling revealed that RSA significantly predicted NASA-TLX scores. A moderate within-subject correlation was also found between RSA and NASA TLX scores. The findings support the potential development of RSA as a real-time measure of cognitive workload.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634-1355, USA. muth@clemson.edu
authors.forename: Eric R
authors.initials: ER
authors.lastname: Muth
authors.forename: Jason D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Moss
authors.forename: Patrick J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Rosopa
authors.forename: James N
authors.initials: JN
authors.lastname: Salley
authors.forename: Alexander D
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Walker
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001146:Arrhythmia, Sinus; D003071:Cognition; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012119:Respiration; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D016526:Workload; D055815:Young Adult