Flight simulator and fNIRS : study of relation between acute stress and cognitive workload

In aviation, knowing the internal state of pilots is desirable to prevent and detect abnormal situations such as an excessive cognitive workload (CW) or acute stress, both known to impact human performance 1. Detecting these states becomes crucial with the possible emergence of Single Pilot Operations (SPO), during which tasks will be largely supported by a single pilot and the aircraft systems. The mental constructs of CW and acute stress have been extensively studied in the human factor literature, but the analysis of their respective impact in the same ecological situations remains poorly studied. In the current study, twenty-one private pilots from the French Civil Aviation University were recruited. They all performed two realistic flight simulator scenarios with the same difficult level and duration (around 35 minutes each). The CW was manipulated with the difficulty of a secondary task (low CW vs high CW; for details, see [2]) and the level of stress was manipulated by means of a social stressor (low arousal vs high arousal). We examined brain hemodynamic activity via functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) with a portable NIRS system (NIRSport, NIRx Medical Technologies, NY, USA)

Cardiovascular Activity linked to the Emotional State and Cognitive Workload during a Flight Simulation

The identification of physiological markers of emotional and cognitive fluctuations during a flight can be useful to alert of risky situations due to their possible impact on pilot’s mental state and performance. In this study, heart rate (HR) and other features, such as R-R peak interval variability and the spectral power of specific frequency bands, have been extracted from ECG recordings throughout flight simulations. The temporal variation of these features within different experimental conditions has been explored to verify their reliability to discriminate episodes of mental overload. Our results show that the monotonic decrease of HR reflects the emotional regulation, mainly under secondary low cognitive overload. Conversely, the increase of the root mean square successive differences was linked to higher cognitive workload situations. Furthermore, the habituation analysis reveals that these features are severely affected when an external cognitive deman

Tracking the sensory and cognitive processes of shifts of spatial attention induced by numbers: an ERPs study

The relationship between space and number has become a focus of intensive investigation (Hubbard et al., 2005; Walsh, 2003). The present paper aims to explore the nature of attentional shifts induced by the perception of irrelevant numbers as it was shown by Fischer et al. (2003). We measured the event related potentials induced by the perception of visual lateralized targets cued by numbers that differed in their magnitude. Congruent trials were defined as those where a target presented in the Right Visual Field (RVF) followed a large number and those where a target presented in the Left Visual Field (LVF) followed a small number. Numbers generate a modulation of evoked potentials on targets as soon as 80 msec after the presentation of the target: congruency of the target determined the amplitude on perceptual P100 and cognitive P300 in both sides of presentation of the target. Although a typical distribution of the components was found, effects of congruency were distributed around anterior and Centro-Parietal sites. Due to the functional properties of the mentioned components, the present data suggest that, in fact, perception of numbers does affect the location of attention to external space. Moreover, the distribution of the congruency effect signals so that the representational nature of numbers makes a difference with respect to the stimuli classically used in cueing studies of visual attention to location. The role of top-down control generated by numbers is discussed

Different brain mechanisms mediate two strategies in arithmetic: evidence from Event-Related brain Potentials

International audienceParticipants were asked to verify if complex additions were smaller than 100 or not. Two hundred and forty arithmetic problems were presented, with half the problems being small-split problems (i.e. proposed sums were 2 or 5% away from 100) and half being large-split problems (i.e. proposed sums were 10 or 15% away from 100). Behavioral and ERPs data indicate that participants may use two different strategies to verify complex inequalities, a whole-calculation strategy for small-split problems and an approximate-calculation strategy for large-split problems. The choice between these two strategies occured within 250 ms post-stimulus presentation, and strategy execution was lateralized. Implications for our understanding of the brain mechanisms underlying arithmetic problem solving are discussed. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved

The electrophysiological basis of mass and count nouns processing

The present study addresses the question of whether count and mass nouns are differentially processed in the brain at the lexical level. Two different investigations have been performed. The first investigation consisted in having ERPs recorded during a lexical decision task contrasting mass and count nouns. The second investigation, preliminary to a second ERP study, collected behavioral data introducing the important dimension of concreteness that was not kept into account in the first stud

Neural correlates of Italian compounds and potential impact of headedness effect: An ERP study

An event-related potential (ERP) technique was used to investigate the way in which noun\u2013noun compounds are processed during a lexical decision task with Italian speakers. Reaction times and error rates were higher for compounds than for noncompounds. ERP data showed a more negative peak in the left anterior negativity (LAN) component for compounds. These results are compatible with a dual-route model that posits not only whole-word access for compounds but also an activation of decomposed representations of compound constituents. A final result relates to head position, which in Italian compounds could be on either the left- or the right-hand side of the word. While behavioural analysis did not reveal a difference between left- and right-headed compounds, a differ- ence was found with the P300 component. The role of the compound head as a crucial information- bearing component is discussed

Noun-noun compounds in the access to the phonological output buffer.

6nonenoneMONDINI S; BARONIO R; CHIARELLI V; DANIELI M; EL YAGOUBI R; SEMENZA C.Mondini, S; Baronio, R; Chiarelli, V; Danieli, M; EL YAGOUBI, R; Semenza, Carl

Emotional State and Cognitive Workload during a Flight Simulation: Heart Rate Study

International audienceBackground: The monitoring of the physiological activity related to mental workload (MW) on pilots will be useful toimprove aviation safety by anticipating human performance degradation. The electrocardiogram (ECG) can reveal MWfluctuations due to either cognitive workload or/and emotional state since this measure exhibits autonomic nervous system modulations. Arguably, heart rate (HR) is one of its most intuitive and reliable parameters. It would be particularly interesting to analyze the interaction between cognitive requirements and emotion in ecologic sets such as a flight simulator. This study aims to explore by means of HR the relation between cognitive demands and emotional activation. Presumably, the effects of cognition and emotion overloads are not necessarily cumulative. Methodology: Eight healthy volunteers in possession of the Private Pilot License were recruited (male; 20.8±3.2 years). ECG signal was recorded along the whole experiment by placing two electrodes on the clavicle and left pectoral of the participants. The HR was computed within 4 minutes segments. NASA-TLX and Big Five inventories were used to assess subjective workload and to consider the influence of individual personality differences. The experiment consisted in completing two dual-tasks of approximately 30 minutes of duration into a flight simulator AL50. Each dual-task required the simultaneous accomplishment of both a pre-established flight plan and an additional task based on target stimulus discrimination inserted between Air Traffic Control instructions. This secondary task allowed us to vary the cognitive workload from low (LC) to high (HC) levels, by combining auditory and visual numerical stimuli to respond to meeting specific criteria. Regarding emotional condition, the two dual-tasks were designed to assure analogous difficulty in terms of solicited cognitive demands. The former was realized by the pilot alone, i.e. Low Arousal (LA) condition. In contrast, the latter generates a high arousal (HA), since the pilot was supervised by two evaluators, filmed and involved into a mock competition with the rest of the participants. Results: Performance for the secondary task showed significant faster reaction times (RT) for HA compared to LA condition (p=.003). Moreover, faster RT was found for LC compared to HC (p < .001) condition. No interaction was found. Concerning HR measure, despite the lack of main effects an interaction between emotion and cognition is evidenced (p=.028). Post hoc analysis showed smaller HR for HA compared to LA condition only for LC (p=.049). Conclusion. The control of an aircraft is a very complex task including strong cognitive demands and depends on the emotional state of pilots. According to the behavioral data, the experimental set has permitted to generate satisfactorily different emotional and cognitive levels. As suggested by the interaction found in HR measure, these two factors do not seem to have a cumulative impact on the sympathetic nervous system. Apparently, low cognitive workload makes pilots more sensitive to emotional variations. These results hint the independency between data processing and emotional regulation. Further physiological data are necessary to confirm and disentangle this relation. This procedure may be useful for monitoring objectively pilot’s mental workload

Cognitive Workload and Personality Style in Pilots Heart Rate Study

International audienceThe cognitive overload and emotion experienced by drivers become a primordial issue to study distraction. This is also the case in aviation, where pilots are commonly exposed to different sources of cognitive and emotional stressors and distractors [1]. Therefore, the integration of an online monitoring to assess the cognitive variations into the cockpit would be highly desirable to alert of delicate mental states. To this aim, reliable physiological measures are required. Electrocardiography (ECG) can be considered as one of the most suitable and cost-effective techniques providing powerful and relevant features to study driver distraction and cognitive workload [2, 3]. Heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) parameters extracted from ECG signals are employed in aeronautics to determine the impact of different levels of mental overload in performance and decision-making [4, 5]. According to their findings, an increase in HR together with a decrease in HRV will be expected when cognitive workload becomes higher. Furthermore, the personality is an important factor to take into consideration for drivers and pilots [6, 7]. Several research works have indicated a particular personality profile in pilots, whose neuroticism component is significantly lower than the population norm [8], while they score higher on the conscientiousness facets [9]. Given that physiological responses in general, and the cardiovascular activity in particular, are affected by personality traits [10, 11], it is important to consider this issue in order to better control individual differences and to reach a fine-grained interpretation of the ECG measures linked to the pilot distraction produced by a supplementary task simultaneous to the flight. In this pilot study, the HR modulation susceptibility to arousal level elicited by a social stressor and the cognitive workload is study in 21 private pilots