The Effect of Task Complexity and Time Pressure on Mental Workload

(Revised)

A !TRACT
Mental workload is a key point in current research. Appropriate mental workload contributes to good performance when completing tasks. However, it can be affected by a number of factors (i.e. Gender, task environment, etc). o e!amine the impact of task comple!ity and time pressure upon the mental workload, thirty"nine sub#ects ($% male, &' female) performed a simple drawing (envelope) task under four conditions in pairs. All tasks should be completed by both partners in the pair. *ub#ects completed the +A*A" ,- workload assessment scales after each task. At the end of all tasks, sub#ects should complete the data results table and submit it to the co"ordinator. .nly $/ participants were considered providing valid data. he descriptive data showed that the values assigned to all the dimensions were higher as the task difficulty increased. .nly the mean value on the effort and frustration dimensions varied obviously when time pressure changed. 0ased on the descriptive data, a significant difference was found in mental workload with different task comple!ity and no significant difference was shown under different time pressure. 1etailed e!perimental design and result analysis were presented in this report.

"#TR$%&CT"$#
Mental 2orkload is a demand placed upon humans, which is commonly de3ned as the difference between cognitive demands of a task and the operator4s resources. Applied research has paid much attention to mental workload study during the last few years, for mental workload responses can be used to assist the designer and operator of contemporary systems (Hancock, et al., &566). here are a number of measures for the evaluation and prediction of mental workload. hey generally fall into three categories (Meshkati, Hancock, 7 8ahimi, &55$)9 (a)performance"based measures, (b) sub#ective measures, and (c) physiological measures. *ub#ective procedures assume that an increased power e!pense is linked to the perceived effort and can be appropriately assessed by individuals. :hysiological measures include analysis of ;voked 0rain :otential, Heart 8ate <ariability, :upil 1iameter, Auditory canal temperature and etc. he performance"based measures are grounded on the assumption that as the task demands increase, the performance will deteriorate. And a hypothesis was posed that there was a relationship between workload and performance, which manifested as substantial increase in workload may lead to poor performance (see =igure &). hus an inference can be made that the task demands may affect the mental workload. >t was suggested a narrowing of attentional focus would occurs with time pressure specifically (;dland 7 *venson, &55%). As time pressure increase, people trend to focus on the most important cues of the task. .ver"focusing can lead to intensive strain of the nerves and impose

psychology burden. his study e!amined whether task comple!ity and time pressure influence on mental workload. >n the e!periment participants were asked to complete tasks on four conditions. wo hypotheses were tested9 &. there was no difference in mental workload under task conditions with different difficulty levels $. there was no difference in mental workload under different time pressure hey were two"tailed tests as H? would be re#ected when the value of the test statistic is either sufficiently small or sufficiently large. he direction of difference was not preselected.

'i(ure )* The +ypothetical Relation et,een Workload and Performance

MET+$%
Participants
A sample of %5 students ($% male, &' female) in the @niversity of +ottingham participated in the e!periment. Ages ranged from $? to %A years. +one of them had any previous e!perience in this task.

Workload Measures
1evelopment of the +A*A ask ,oad >nde! (+A*A" ,-) has implied an important and vast program of laboratory research (Hart 7 *taveland, &566), and the instrument4s sensitivity has been demonstrated using a great variety of tasks.

+A*A" ,- is one of the sub#ective rating measures (Hart 7 *taveland, &566) rates perceived workload on si! different subscales9 Mental 1emand, :hysical 1emand, emporal 1emand, :erformance, ;ffort, and =rustration. =igure $ shows the +A*A" ,- form and the definitions of dimensions. ;ach of the ' dimensions is rated on a $?"step bipolar scale (? to&??, A"point intervals). A weighting procedure reBuires a paired comparison task to be performed prior to the workload assessments. A workload score from ? to &?? is obtained for each rated task by multiplying the weight by the individual dimension scale score, summing across scales, and dividing by &A (the total number of paired comparisons). =igure % shows an e!ample of the results of pairwise comparisons and the weighting.

'i(ure -* #A!A.T/0 !heet

'i(ure 1* Results of Pair,ise Comparisons (+art2 et al*2 )344)

%esi(n
:articipants worked in pairs to complete an (envelope) drawing task. hey must complete the task of drawing the envelope using one continuous stroke and ensuring that the line touches the dots on the paper sheet. he envelopes should be drawn in order on a sheet of paper from top left, along each row, until bottom right. here were four conditions for the task" small paced, large paced, mi!ed paced and mi!ed free. >n the (small paced) sheet, dots were close, which resulted in small siCe envelopes. >n the (large paced), big siCe envelopes were reBuired. As for (mi!ed), participants should draw envelopes of both large and small siCes. All participants must complete task and fill in the +A*A" ,- form under all conditions. At the end, participants must mark their partner4s performance on the task"score number of envelopes attempted and number successfully completed.

=our task conditions can be divided into two comparisons" small, large and mi!ed paced in a group (Group &)D mi!ed paced and mi!ed free in another (Group $). >n Group &, there was one >ndependent <ariable (task conditions) with three levels. >n Group $, the >ndependent <ariable was the time pressure (two levels). =or both groups, the 1ependent <ariables were the scores on each of the si! dimensions in +A*A" ,- sheet. he e!periment was of a within"sub#ects design.

Procedure
>ndividual pairs decided whether to alternate between supervisorEparticipant roles, or completed all tasks as participant, followed by all as supervisor. :airs were allocated to the following groups, and each group completed the task in different orders. )5 A C % -5 % A C 15 % A % 65 % C A (A.small paced2 . lar(e paced2 C.mixed paced2 %.mixed free) =or (small paced), (large paced),(mi!ed paced) and (mi!ed free), the supervisor must ensure that one (envelop) is completed every si! seconds. he task under either condition must be completed for two minutes in total (i.e. $? (envelopes) would be completed). =or (mi!ed free), the participant was reBuired to complete as many envelopes as possible within the two minutes total time. o start the task, the participant held the pen and prepared to draw envelopes on the sheet headed (small paced), (large paced),(mi!ed paced) or (mi!ed free), the supervisor took the stopwatch to control the time. he participant completed the tasks under the instruction of the supervisor. After each task the participant filled in the +A*A" ,- workload assessment sheet. 2hen all tasks had been completed by both partners in the pair, all participant should completed the data results table and submit it to the co"ordinator. 1ata from this procedure were taken for analysis. his analysis was done using ;!cel software.

!pecial Treatment of %ata

1ata for participants 57 &? were missing for some handwriting illegible. >n addition, data of &A participants were e!cluded as they failed to follow the instruction of the task (i.e. 1rew more then $? envelopes) or provided invalid information. herefore, only data of $/ participants were taken into analysis. his treatment was to reduce the e!perimental error of the results.

RE!&/T!
able & shows the the values of Mean and *1 of each of the si! dimensions under four conditions. 7roup) (small2 lar(e and mixed paced) >n general, for each dimension, the mean values of the three conditions were on the rise " mi!edFlargeFsmall, which indicated when task comple!ity increased, the mental workload inde! went up correspondingly. he *1 values fluctuated as the task comple!ity changed, there was little thing could be found based on the data. 7roup- (mixed paced and mixed free)

>t was shown that for the mean values on effort and frustration dimensions, (mi!ed free)F (mi!ed paced). However, (mi!ed paced) had greater mean values on the rest. he *1 values of (mi!ed paced) were less than (mi!ed free) on all dimensions.

Ta8le )* Mean and !% under T,o Conditions

%"!!C&!"$#
he result for Group & from the present e!periments indicated there was a difference in mental workload with different task comple!ity. >n general, the values assigned to all the dimensions were higher as the task difficulty increased (Mmi!edFMlargeFMsmal). emporal demand in (mi!ed paced) condition received the highest value, followed by mental and effort dimensions. >t can inferred that when task became more difficult, the workload on temporal, mental and effort dimension rose, thus affecting the mental workload. As for the *1 values, the changes were due to individual different perception and evaluation of the mental workload. =or Group $, the mean values under two conditions were slightly different on mental, physical, temporal and performance dimensions. 0ut on effort and frustration dimensions, the mean values of (mi!ed free) were obviously greater than values of (mi!ed paced),which showed time pressure changed, the impact on effort and frustration increased. 0ut it was not sufficient to prove that time pressure can affect the total mental workload. he *1 value of (mi!ed pace) condition, which were generally G *1mi!ed free, presented a lower dispersion degree. >t can be seen that the assessment of (mi!ed pace) were more consistent. Although the e!periment went smoothly, there were still some respects to be improved. +A*A" ,- was applied in this e!periment. However, the weighting procedure was not performed. his procedure reBuires a paired comparison task to be performed prior to the workload assessments. :aired comparisons reBuire the operator to choose which dimension is more relevant to workload across all pairs of the si! dimensions. 2ithout the respective weights, there is no way to calculate the score of mental workload. his score can help to test the hypotheses e!plicitly. Moreover,

+A*A" ,- is one kind of self"report measures. >t is easy to be performed with low costs and high face validity. +evertheless, there are limitations such like the operator4s inability to distinguish e!ternal demands from actual effort or workload e!perienced, which may lead to rate scales incorrectly. As a result, the data collected fail to help in the e!periment. >n conclusion, the present e!periment investigated the impact of task comple!ity and time pressure on mental workload. A e!periment with four conditions was conducted to evaluated the influence. +A*A" ,- was applied and the raw scores of si! dimensions were compared respectively under all task conditions. he descriptive data showed the corresponding influence on all dimensions when task comple!ity and time pressure changed. 0ased on the analyCed data, a significant difference was found in mental workload with different task comple!ity. However, no significant difference was shown with different time pressure according to current analytical method.

RERERE#CE
&. ;dland, A. 7 *venson, .. (&55%). Hudgment and decision making under time pressure9 *tudies and findings. >n .. *venson and A.H. Maule, (;ds.) ime pressure and stress in human #udgement and decision making (pp $I"/?). +ew Jork9 :lenum :ress $. Hancock, :.A., and Meshkati, +. (;ds) &566, Human mental workload. +orth"Holland, Amsterdam. %. Hart, *.G., 7 *taveland, ,.;. (&566). 1evelopment of +A*A" ,- ( ask ,oad >nde!)9 8esults of empirical and theoretical research. >n :.A. Hancock 7 +. Meshkati (;ds.), Human mental workload (pp. &%5K&6%). Amsterdam9 +orthHolland. /. Meshkati, +., Hancock, :., 7 8ahimi, M. (&55$). echniBues in mental workload assessment. >n H. 2ilson 7 ;. Lorlett (;ds.), ;valuation of human work. A practical ergonomics methodology (pp. '?AK'$I). ,ondon9 aylor 7 =rancis.