A Neuroergonomics Approach to Mental Workload, Engagement and Human Performance
Résumé
The assessment and prediction of cognitive performance is a key issue for any
discipline concerned with human operators in the context of safety-critical behavior.
Most of the research has focused on the measurement of mental workload but
this construct remains difficult to operationalize despite decades of research on the
topic. Recent advances in Neuroergonomics have expanded our understanding of
neurocognitive processes across different operational domains.We provide a framework
to disentangle those neural mechanisms that underpin the relationship between task
demand, arousal, mental workload and human performance. This approach advocates
targeting those specific mental states that precede a reduction of performance efficacy.
A number of undesirable neurocognitive states (mind wandering, effort withdrawal,
perseveration, inattentional phenomena) are identified and mapped within a twodimensional
conceptual space encompassing task engagement and arousal. We argue
that monitoring the prefrontal cortex and its deactivation can index a generic shift
from a nominal operational state to an impaired one where performance is likely to
degrade. Neurophysiological, physiological and behavioral markers that specifically
account for these states are identified. We then propose a typology of neuroadaptive
countermeasures to mitigate these undesirable mental states.
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