Frontal midline theta rhythm and eyeblinking activity during a VDT task and a video game: useful tools for psychophysiology in ergonomics

Abstract

The necessity of psychophysiological research in ergonomics has gradually been recognized in Japan. In this paper, frontal midline theta rhythm (Fm-theta) and eyeblinking are recommended as tools in this field, especially for assessing workers' attention concentration, mental workload, fatigue, and interest during VDT work at the workplace and playing video games at home. In experiment 1, Fm-theta and eyeblink rates were measured in 10 Japanese abacus experts (Group E) and 10 normal students (Group C) during a visual search task with VDT. Memory load affected all measures. The amount of Fm-theta appeared more in Group E than Group C, but blink rate was lower in Group E than in Group C. As abacus experts have such highly developed skills in concentration, the result indicates that the amount of Fm-theta would be a good index of attention concentration in VDT workers. The second experiment was done with 10 school-aged children as subjects during three visual tasks: video game, mental test and animation. Amounts of Fm-theta and the degree of blink inhibition were maximum while playing the video game, which all subjects reported they most preferred, and minimum while watching animation, which eight subjects reported to be most boring. An interesting task would seem to provoke Fm-theta and inhibit eyeblink activity. From these two experiments, Fm-theta and eyeblink rate would appear to be good indices of attention concentration and task pleasantness of a mental task using VDT.