ABSTRACT
Most mental workload measures are applied in a situation where the person carrying out the task is asked to assess the workload, usually via one of the standard paper-based questionnaires. An extension of this approach is to ask individuals to rate the workload of their peers. A study is reported in which experimental participants judged their own and their fellow crews’ workload on a comb scale from the NASA TLX workload measure. It was found that there was no ‘judge’ effect, i.e. no significant difference between the individuals rating their own workload and the other person’s assessment of their workload. However, analyses of interactions indicated that there was a judgement effect, in that the commander experiences less workload than his/her driver thinks s/he is experiencing. Tentative conclusions drawn from this study imply that in a team setting, individuals can assess accurately the workload of others, but their own workload levels may play a substantive role in their judgements.
