Easily applicable methods for measuring the mental load on tractor operatorsShow others and affiliations
2020 (English)In: Journal of Agricultural Safety and Health, ISSN 1074-7583, Vol. 26, no 1, p. 5-14Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Agriculture technology is moving toward automation, placing operators in a supervisory role. This change in operator workload may lead to increased stress and higher mental load, resulting in reduced attention and hence greater risk of illness or injury to humans and damage to equipment. This study investigated the use of easily applicable equipment to measure mental load. Three methods were used to measure the mental load on machine operators: heart rate monitoring, two types of electroencephalograph (EEG) evaluation, and an assessment protocol. Three driving exercises (general driving, slalom driving, and loading) and a counting exercise were used in a driving simulator to create different levels of mental load. Due to the number of exercises, a singlescale assessment protocol was used to save time. We found that only the assessment protocol gave clear results and would work well as an evaluation tool. The heart rate and EEG measurements did not provide clear data for mental load assessment.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers , 2020. Vol. 26, no 1, p. 5-14
Keywords [en]
Agriculture, Awareness, Continuous measurement, EEG, Heart rate, Mental load, Simulator, Single-scale assessment, Tractor operator, Work machinery
National Category
Natural Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-45342DOI: 10.13031/jash.13223Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85084962848OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ri-45342DiVA, id: diva2:1454224
2020-07-152020-07-152020-12-01Bibliographically approved