Evaluation of mental workload in visual-motor task: Spectral analysis of single-channel frontal EEG

This study explores the feasibility of mental workload monitoring using a single-channel mobile EEG system. We investigated the modulation of frontal neural activity with respect to changes in mental workload levels induced by visual-motor tasks of varied difficulty. Using a computerized visual-motor task similar to mirror drawing, our work demonstrated that perceived difficulty was more dominated by the complexity of the path to be traced than the actual time taken to complete the task. EEG activities recorded from the forehead area at the beginning of each trial are positively correlated with overall perceived difficulty of the task. Results in this study suggest that frontal EEG spectra are significantly modulated by the changes in relative mental workload levels during a visual-motor task. Such finding shed light on the possibility of mental workload monitoring in daily life using a user-friendly mobile EEG system.