Assessing Mental Workload in Industrial Environments: A Review of Applied Studies

Together with physical aspects, cognitive fatigue and overload are important factors for the occurrence of work accidents and underperformance in the workplace. That is why mental workload assessment methods are currently of great interest. Given the changes in the very nature of work from a physical to a more cognitive basis, it is expected that concerns about mental workload will remain high. Different types of mental workload assessment methods exist, many of which were designed to applications in controlled environments. Thus, this study aims to make a systematic review of the literature in order to identify which mental workload assessment methods have been employed in industrial environments. From an initial sample of 1.918 documents, fifteen documents were included in the review containing cognitive assessment methods employed in different sectors. Among the main findings, subjective methods are the most employed across industry sectors with a predominance of NASA-TLX applications. The automotive sector was the target of most studies given the increasing automation levels in this type of industry. Identified research opportunities include the applicability of methods to real environments, the transparency and standardization in the methods selection and combination processes, and the inclusion of psychosocial factors and occupational hazards when establishing methodological approaches.