ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses workload to the psychological concept of attention and suggests how theories of attention can help solve some of the problems in defining and measuring workload. It discusses the importance of human workload in aviation systems. The aviation industry is proud of its safety record and takes aggressive action to maintain the public perception that aviation, especially commercial air transport by certified carriers, is safe. Automation offers the potential for both decreasing and increasing crew workload. Mental workload is not nearly as tidy a concept as physical workload, and viewing it primarily as an analogy to physical workload is bound to lead to disappointment. Perhaps the most potentially unobtrusive class of mental workload indices is the biocybernetic, or physiological, group of measures. The biocybernetic measures of mental workload are superior to subjective ratings in their objectivity, and they are superior to secondary tasks in their unobtrusiveness.
