T7.2 Biosignals and Cognitive Load Balance – In-Lab Tests
During the month of June, UPM and SERMAS performed a set of in-lab tests for Cognitive Load Balance at the ZendalHospital in Madrid, Spain. These tests are the first trials for testing all the tools developed in “T7.2: Biosignals monitoring & Cognitive load balancing” under “WP7: Health and cognitive monitoring and support” at RESCUER project.
The tools developed by UNIWA, VICOM, UPM and SERMAS intend to provide FRs with specialized monitoring systems to track health status and to prevent excessive cognitive load. Inferring Cognitive Load Balance (CLB) in real time situations is not trivial, so first tests are devoted to understand how biosignals are affected under a different CLB.
Therefore, in these first in-lab tests we selected a total of 80 first responders (doctors, nurses, technicians and firefighters). They performed an attention division task in front of a computer for 30 minutes with an increase of complexity every 3 minutes. While the users were performing the tests, different biosignals where recorded; specifically, Heart Rate, Galvanic Skin Response, Body Temperature, Eye Gaze, Respiration and Masseter EMG activation. Moreover, for every complexity level, users were asked to fill up a NASA TLX test about the complexity of the test and its subjective CLB.
During the following months, we will be analyzing the extracted data, and we expect to come back with exciting results.
