Final Report of Physiological Psychology Group

Abstract

What workload measures are offered by psychophysiology? This question must be rephrased and the problem stated clearly before it can be answered, as is evident from the papers of Mulder, and Ursin & Ursin. The Ursins use the activation concept of Lindsley (1951), Duffy (1972) and others. Mulder uses the same idea, but employs the term defensive reaction, which is commonly used for activation phenomena affecting the cardiovascular system (see Folkow and Neill, 1971, for references). The term activation (or sometimes arousal) is used conventionally to identify an increment in CNS activity measured directly or indirectly. The important aspect in our context is that it implies a change in the state of the system influencing its information processing capabilities.