Evaluation of ship navigator's mental workload using nasal temperature and heart rate variability

Abstract

Mental workload is useful to evaluate performance of a ship's bridge teammate: a captain, a duty officer and a helmsman, sometimes adding a pilot. The heart rate variability and the nasal temperature predict well based on pre-experiments; however, we have not evaluated them at the same time yet. In this paper, we evaluate simultaneously heart rate variability and nasal temperature of a subject as he guides a ship into port. The experiment is carried out using a ship handling simulator, not a real ship. We show they are good indices for efficient navigation skills.