Measurement of Cognitive Load in HCI Systems Using EEG Power Spectrum: An Experimental Study

Ubiquitous computing involving complex interactive systems are leading to increase in cognitive load in day to day activities. Apart from causing stress and mental exhaustion, increase in cognitive load is likely to cause expensive human errors in case of critical tasks. Though subjective measures of cognitive load are in use in HCI, there is a need to explore non-invasive and non-intrusive physiological measures of cognitive load. This paper discusses the theory of cognitive load, identifies EEG frequency bands likely to capture the cognitive load, discusses brain locations related to the cognitive load based on literature, proposes a methodology to measure cognitive load using EEG power spectrum and verifies the framework by an experimental study. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.