Physiological and Subjective Assessment of Fighter Pilot Mental Workload
article
INTRODUCTION: Next-generation air force operations increasingly depend on advanced flight systems, which raises questions about their impact on aircrew workload. Physiological measures enable continuous, objective, and unobtrusive assessments, overcoming some limitations of self-report measures. We investigated whether electroencephalogram, electrocardiogram, and electrodermal activity predicted subjective Rating Scale of Mental Effort (RSME) ratings of fighter pilots during an operationally relevant mission in an F-16 simulator. METHODS: The mission included three flight segments expected to induce increasingly higher workload, with a mathematical task of two arithmetic difficulty levels added to each segment. This approach allowed us to explore whether physiology distinguished workload both across and within flight segments. RESULTS: Subjective ratings confirmed an increase in workload throughout the mission (ΔRSME = 22). However, our manipulation of arithmetic difficulty was less effective: neither subjective ratings nor arithmetic performance significantly differentiated simple and complex calculations (ΔRSME = 5; Δreaction time = 0.02 s, Δunsuccessful trials = 0.5). None of our physiological measures—frontal theta power (Δ0.08, Δ–0.07 mV), parietal alpha power (Δ–0.16, Δ0.14 mV), heart rate (Δ0.01, Δ–0.02 bpm), skin conductance response (Δ0.0, Δ0.0 mS), and skin conductance peaks (Δ0.3, Δ0.2)—systematically distinguished flight segments or arithmetic difficulty, respectively. Physiology also did not significantly predict subjective workload (R² = 2.2). DISCUSSION: Large interindividual variability, use of workload management strategies, and relatively small task demand differences may explain the null results. Our study underscores the complexity of workload assessment in an operational setting and offers methodological insights that may inform future ecologically valid research. Copyright © by The Authors. This article is published Open Access under the CC-BY-NC license.
Topics
aircrewaviationmental effortpsychophysiologyAdultAerospace MedicineElectrocardiographyElectroencephalographyGalvanic Skin ResponseHeart RateHumansMaleMilitary PersonnelPilotsTask Performance and AnalysisWorkloadairplane pilotelectrodermal responsemilitary personnelphysiologypsychologytask performance
TNO Identifier
1033524
DOI
https://dx.doi.org/10.3357/AMHP.6875.2026
ISSN
23756314
Source
Aerospace Medicine and Human Performance, 97(8), pp. 592-600.
Pages
592-600