Self-Supervised Learning for Near-Wild Cognitive Workload Estimation

Feedback on cognitive workload may reduce decision-making mistakes. Machine learning-based models can produce feedback from physiological data such as electroencephalography (EEG) and electrocardiography (ECG). Supervised machine learning requires large training data sets that are (1) relevant and decontaminated and (2) carefully labeled for accurate approximation, a costly and tedious procedure. Commercial over-the-counter devices are low-cost resolutions for the real-time collection of physiological modalities. However, they produce significant artifacts when employed outside of laboratory settings, compromising machine learning accuracies. Additionally, the physiological modalities that most successfully machine-approximate cognitive workload in everyday settings are unknown. To address these challenges, a first-ever hybrid implementation of feature selection and self-supervised machine learning techniques is introduced. This model is employed on data collected outside controlled laboratory settings to (1) identify relevant physiological modalities to machine approximate six levels of cognitive-physical workloads from a seven-modality repository and (2) postulate limited labeling experiments and machine approximate mental-physical workloads using self-supervised learning techniques.