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Main Authors: Yim, Soobin, Yoo, Sangbong, Yoon, Chanyoung, Jung, Chanyoung, Kim, Chansoo, Jang, Yun, Quadri, Ghulam Jilani
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.09262
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author Yim, Soobin
Yoo, Sangbong
Yoon, Chanyoung
Jung, Chanyoung
Kim, Chansoo
Jang, Yun
Quadri, Ghulam Jilani
author_facet Yim, Soobin
Yoo, Sangbong
Yoon, Chanyoung
Jung, Chanyoung
Kim, Chansoo
Jang, Yun
Quadri, Ghulam Jilani
contents Accurate assessment of mental workload (MW) is crucial for understanding cognitive processes during visualization tasks. While EEG-based measures are emerging as promising alternatives to conventional assessment techniques, such as selfreport measures, studies examining consistency across these different methodologies are limited. In a preliminary study, we observed indications of potential discrepancies between EEGbased and self-reported MW measures. Motivated by these preliminary observations, our study further explores the discrepancies between EEG-based and self-reported MW assessment methods through an experiment involving visualization tasks. In the experiment, we employ two benchmark tasks: the Visualization Literacy Assessment Test (VLAT) and a Spatial Visualization (SV) task. EEG signals are recorded from participants using a 32-channel system at a sampling rate of 128 Hz during the visualization tasks. For each participant, MW is estimated using an EEG-based model built on a Graph Attention Network (GAT) architecture, and these estimates are compared with conventional MW measures to examine potential discrepancies. Our findings reveal notable discrepancies between task difficulty and EEG-based MW estimates, as well as between EEG-based and self-reported MW measures across varying task difficulty levels. Additionally, the observed patterns suggest the presence of unconscious cognitive effort that may not be captured by selfreport alone.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_09262
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Discrepancies in Mental Workload Estimation: Self-Reported versus EEG-Based Measures in Data Visualization Evaluation
Yim, Soobin
Yoo, Sangbong
Yoon, Chanyoung
Jung, Chanyoung
Kim, Chansoo
Jang, Yun
Quadri, Ghulam Jilani
Human-Computer Interaction
Accurate assessment of mental workload (MW) is crucial for understanding cognitive processes during visualization tasks. While EEG-based measures are emerging as promising alternatives to conventional assessment techniques, such as selfreport measures, studies examining consistency across these different methodologies are limited. In a preliminary study, we observed indications of potential discrepancies between EEGbased and self-reported MW measures. Motivated by these preliminary observations, our study further explores the discrepancies between EEG-based and self-reported MW assessment methods through an experiment involving visualization tasks. In the experiment, we employ two benchmark tasks: the Visualization Literacy Assessment Test (VLAT) and a Spatial Visualization (SV) task. EEG signals are recorded from participants using a 32-channel system at a sampling rate of 128 Hz during the visualization tasks. For each participant, MW is estimated using an EEG-based model built on a Graph Attention Network (GAT) architecture, and these estimates are compared with conventional MW measures to examine potential discrepancies. Our findings reveal notable discrepancies between task difficulty and EEG-based MW estimates, as well as between EEG-based and self-reported MW measures across varying task difficulty levels. Additionally, the observed patterns suggest the presence of unconscious cognitive effort that may not be captured by selfreport alone.
title Discrepancies in Mental Workload Estimation: Self-Reported versus EEG-Based Measures in Data Visualization Evaluation
topic Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.09262