Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras have shown that electroencephalogram (EEG) can be used to measure brainwaves in workers, to assess their mental sharpness, especially during a crisis.
The research team has used EEG measurement to assess the cognitive workload of human operators in a chemical plant control room.
High cognitive workload makes them prone to commit errors leading to accidents.
The research team of the department of chemical engineering was led by Rajagopalan Srinivasan and included Mohd Umair Iqbal and Babji Srinivasan. The team published the results of the research in the Journal of Computers and Computer Engineering.
Mr. Rajagopalan said whether human errors, which cause 70% of industrial accidents world over, occur at the planning or execution stage depend on the worker’s skill and mental state and sharpness at that time.
“Anybody’s performance will become error-prone if there is a mismatch between the demands of the task which the person is responsible and their ability at that moment to handle it. Such a mismatch leads to high cognitive workload in human operators, often a precursor to poor performance,” he said.
“All our thoughts and activities are driven by electrical signals between the cells in our brain called brain waves, which occur at different frequencies and are called alpha, beta, gamma, theta and delta. The relative magnitudes of these waves along with their variation are a signature of our thought process and current mental state,” Mr. Rajagopalan explained.
“We intend to study the potential of these EEG methods to improve human performance in various high-risk industries, thus opening a new paradigm to industrial safety and its relation to the real-time mental state of the worker,” the scientist said.
The EEG-based approach could be used to fine-tune the training process of workers. It can also provide targeted cues during learning, to improve the overall effectiveness of training, the researchers have said.
