Investigating the effect of indoor thermal environment on occupants’ mental workload and task performance using electroencephalogram
Investigating the effect of indoor thermal environment on occupants’ mental workload and task performance using electroencephalogram
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利用脑电图研究室内热环境对人的精神负荷和工作表现的影响
DOI：
10.1016/j.buildenv.2019.05.012
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发表时间：
2019-07
影响因子：
7.4
通讯作者：
Xi Wang;Da Li;C. Menassa;V. Kamat
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Xi Wang;Da Li;C. Menassa;V. Kamat
室内办公室的工作人员的工作表现会受到环境热条件的极大影响。然而，这种影响可能难以量化，特别是当热应力是温度的适度升高或降低并且工作生产率无法直接测量时。受试者在实验条件下表现良好的强烈动机也导致了比较他们在不同热环境中的表现的困难。为了克服这些局限性，本文提出了一种方法，通过研究居住者在执行标准化认知任务时通过脑电图（EEG）测量的心理负荷来研究室内热条件对居住者表现的影响。对 15 名受试者进行了一项整合脑电图心理负荷测量和认知任务的实验。当受试者在计算机上执行四项认知任务时收集脑电图数据。基于之前的研究，我们提出了根据额叶 theta 和顶叶 alpha 频带功率计算的心理负荷指数。进行受试者内比较，以调查受试者的心理负荷在三种不同的热环境（代表微凉、中性和微热的热感觉）下是否存在统计差异。结果表明，热环境的影响因人而异。通过比较不同热环境之间的心理负荷指数，我们发现，在达到相同性能的情况下，稍热的环境会导致比其他两种环境相对更高的心理负荷。这项研究从神经生理学的角度提供了关于热环境如何通过影响居住者的心理负荷来影响居住者的表现的有希望的见解。
Workers' performance in indoor offices can be greatly affected by the thermal condition of the environment. However, this effect can be difficult to quantify, especially when the thermal stress is a moderate increase or decrease in temperature and the work productivity cannot be directly measured. Subjects' high motivation to perform well under experimental conditions also causes difficulties in comparing their performance in different thermal environments. In order to overcome these limitations, this paper proposes a method to investigate the effect of the indoor thermal conditions on occupants' performance by studying occupants' mental workload measured by the electroencephalography (EEG) when they perform standardized cognitive tasks. An experiment integrating EEG mental workload measurement and cognitive tasks was implemented on 15 subjects. EEG data were collected while subjects were performing four cognitive tasks on computers. Based on previous studies, we propose a mental workload index calculated from the frontal theta and parietal alpha frequency band power. Within-subject comparisons were performed to investigate whether subjects' mental workload is statistically different under three different thermal environments, representing thermal sensations of slightly cool, neutral, and slightly warm. The results show that the effect of thermal environment varies across different individuals. By comparing the mental workload index among different thermal environments, we found that the slightly warm environment resulted in a relatively higher mental workload than the other two environments to achieve the same performance. The study provides promising insights into how the thermal environment influences occupants’ performance by affecting their mental workload from the neurophysiological perspective.