The Role of Attention and Cognitive Workload in Measuring Levels of Task Complexity within Virtual Environments

This paper studied the role of attention and cognitive workload (CWL) in measuring levels of task complexity. Within a virtual environment (VE), participants undertook a task with a baseline and 3 levels of the complexity. The baseline and levels were defined as those in an existing work. A well-known ratio of attention, AR, was computed from recorded brainwaves of the participants during the task. Their CWL was derived from a de-facto questionnaire of the NASA task load index. The study's outcomes indicated that, while the role of the AR in the measurement remained unclear, the CWL could serve the measurement.