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International Symposium on Human Mental Workload: Models and Applications

H-WORKLOAD 2018: Human Mental Workload: Models and Applications pp 222–238Cite as

The Complementary Role of Activity Context in the Mental Workload Evaluation of Helicopter Pilots: A Multi-tasking Learning Approach

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Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 1012))

Abstract

Manifestations of increasing mental demands may be related to the task’s context. Additionally, to fundamental physiological changes, the workload may be also characterized sometimes by contextual task-related elements. We aimed to investigate the workload of helicopter pilots and develop predictive models related to the tasks’ context. Eight pilots completed an unknown case-scenario (~1 h) in a helicopter simulator. The scenario included changing mission during flight and receiving/transferring an injured subject to the near hospital. We selected interesting scenario’s periods/“tasks” (e.g., searching hospital, urgent landing) where pilots gave oral evaluations (0–100). Performed tasks had various contexts. We developed a multitasking learning approach to “pool together” all tasks because some of them, although different, may carry useful information about others, so they should neither be merged nor be processed totally independently. Interestingly, it seems that physiological and contextual parameters change order of descriptive power, depending on the task.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the partners of work-package 1.6, Cockpit centered on the crew and Method and tools for the assessment of the future cockpit for helicopters of the IKKY program, and in particular Serge Couvet, David Hartnagel, and Denis Demain for their very active participation. We also wish to express our gratitude to the French Gendarmerie air force and in particular the SAG Villacoublay.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cognition and Action Group (COGNAG-G), UMR 8257, CNRS, SSA, Université Paris Descartes, Paris, France

    Ioannis Bargiotas, Alice Nicolaï, Pierre-Paul Vidal & Stéphane Buffat

  2. Center for Mathematical Studies and their Applications, CNRS, ENS Paris-Saclay, Université Paris-Saclay, 94235, Cachan Cedex, France

    Ioannis Bargiotas, Alice Nicolaï, Christophe Labourdette & Nicolas Vayatis

  3. School of Automation, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Zhejiang, China

    Pierre-Paul Vidal

  4. Institut de Recherche Biomédicale des Armées, Brétigny-sur-Orge, France

    Stéphane Buffat

  5. Hôpital d’instruction des armées Percy, Clamart, France

    Stéphane Buffat

Authors
  1. Ioannis Bargiotas
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  2. Alice Nicolaï
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  3. Pierre-Paul Vidal
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  4. Christophe Labourdette
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  5. Nicolas Vayatis
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  6. Stéphane Buffat
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ioannis Bargiotas .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dublin Institute of Technology, Dublin, Ireland

    Luca Longo

  2. Dublin Institute of Technology, Dublin, Ireland

    M. Chiara Leva

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Bargiotas, I., Nicolaï, A., Vidal, PP., Labourdette, C., Vayatis, N., Buffat, S. (2019). The Complementary Role of Activity Context in the Mental Workload Evaluation of Helicopter Pilots: A Multi-tasking Learning Approach. In: Longo, L., Leva, M. (eds) Human Mental Workload: Models and Applications. H-WORKLOAD 2018. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1012. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14273-5_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14273-5_13

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-14272-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-14273-5

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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