Predicting secondary task performance: a directly actionable metric for cognitive overload detection
File(s)IEEE_DecPred_stamped.pdf (1.48 MB)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Amadori, Pierluigi Vito
Fischer, Tobias
Wang, Ruohan
Demiris, Yiannis
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
In this paper, we address cognitive overload detection from unobtrusive physiological signals for users in dual-tasking scenarios. Anticipating cognitive overload is a pivotal challenge in interactive cognitive systems and could lead to safer shared-control between users and assistance systems. Our framework builds on the assumption that decision mistakes on the cognitive secondary task of dual-tasking users correspond to cognitive overload events, wherein the cognitive resources required to perform the task exceed the ones available to the users. We propose DecNet, an end-to-end sequence-to-sequence deep learning model that infers in real-time the likelihood of user mistakes on the secondary task, i.e., the practical impact of cognitive overload, from eye-gaze and head-pose data. We train and test DecNet on a dataset collected in a simulated driving setup from a cohort of 20 users on two dual-tasking decision-making scenarios, with either visual or auditory decision stimuli. DecNet anticipates cognitive overload events in both scenarios and can perform in time-constrained scenarios, anticipating cognitive overload events up to 2s before they occur. We show that DecNet’s performance gap between audio and visual scenarios is consistent with user perceived difficulty. This suggests that single modality stimulation induces higher cognitive load on users, hindering their decision-making abilities.
Date Issued
2022-12-01
Date Acceptance
2021-09-01
Citation
IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems, 2022, 14 (4), pp.1474-1485
ISSN
2379-8920
Publisher
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Start Page
1474
End Page
1485
Journal / Book Title
IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems
Volume
14
Issue
4
Copyright Statement
© 2021 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.
Identifier
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9542977
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2021-09-21