Physiological and Biochemical Measures of Mental Workload of Air Traffic Controllers: A Systematic Literature Review
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Summary
This systematic literature review addresses the measurement of mental workload in air traffic controllers (ATCs), a complex cognitive task where increased workload can degrade performance and compromise safety. Motivated by the shift toward cognitive work and the need for objective, real-time workload indicators, the study synthesizes existing research on physiological and biochemical measures. The authors aim to summarize findings from studies specifically focusing on ATCs, categorizing measures into cardiovascular, ocular, brain, respiration, skin, and biochemical domains to identify consistent indicators of mental strain. The methodology involved a systematic search of the Scopus database from inception to February 2020, using keywords related to air traffic control and mental workload. After screening titles, abstracts, and full texts, 34 studies were included for analysis. The reviewed studies varied in setting, with 85% conducted in simulated environments and 15% in real working situations. Participants included professional ATCs, students, and novices. The review grouped physiological measures into five categories and biochemical measures into cortisol and salivary immunoglobulin A (sIgA). The findings reveal inconsistent results across studies, likely due to differences in task scenarios, participant expertise, and demographic variables. Brain measures, particularly EEG and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIR), were the most frequently used (35% of studies). EEG theta band activity and fNIR oxygenation levels generally increased with workload. Ocular measures showed that pupil diameter consistently increased with workload, while blink rate results were conflicting. Cardiovascular measures yielded mixed results; some studies found heart rate (HR) more diagnostic than heart rate variability (HRV), while others found HRV more sensitive or neither significant. Respiration rates increased with load, and skin conductance correlated well with workload indexes. Biochemical measures indicated that salivary cortisol levels correlated significantly with objective and perceived workload, whereas sIgA increases did not. The significance of this review lies in highlighting the lack of consensus on a single optimal physiological indicator for ATC workload. The authors conclude that participant characteristics, such as experience and age, and the distinction between simulated and real environments heavily influence results. They recommend using multiple physiological measures simultaneously rather than relying on a single metric. Furthermore, the review underscores the potential of machine learning algorithms applied to EEG data for accurately classifying workload levels and suggests that future research should focus on developing comfortable, wearable devices for real-world application to improve human-machine interaction and safety in air traffic management.
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| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | Crossref | — | — | 1 | 2026-08-09 |
| archive | success | canonical_url | — | — | 1 | 2026-08-09 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 3 | 2026-08-10 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-08-09 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 1 | 2026-08-09 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-08-09 |
| enrich | success | semantic_scholar | — | — | 1 | 2026-08-09 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-08-09 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-nvidia | summ-v5 | 2 | 2026-08-10 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 10 | 2026-08-11 |
| verify | partial | — | — | — | 2 | 2026-08-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-nvidia on 2026-08-10; verification: verified_with_issues.
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- Empirical Findings: physiological data, self report data
- Theoretical Contribution: theory or model