An evaluation of mental workload for effective navigation

Abstract

PurposeThis paper aims to propose that the nasal temperature is an effective index to evaluate the mental workload of a navigator for effective navigation.Design/methodology/approachThe evaluation comes from the actual on‐board experiment, not simulation. The subject is real bridge teammates; captain, duty officer, and quarter master. The mental workload is evaluated for a lot of navigational situations.FindingsThe nasal temperature responds when the navigator makes a decision regarding ship‐handling and collision avoidance, and shows well the whole trend of his decision‐making. Then the nasal temperature takes effect to evaluate the bridge team work among captain, duty officer and quarter master.Research limitations/implicationsFuture research is to make cross‐indices with the nasal temperature and the heart rate variability (R‐R interval) complementary to each other where the nasal temperature registers the trend and the R‐R interval registers the quick response of the mental workload.Practical implicationsThe paper describes the effective index which is useful to evaluate bridge teammates’ mental workload for effective navigation.Originality/valueNavigator's skill has been evaluated according to behavior (performance) and a questionnaire as a quantitative evaluation; moreover, the mental workload tries to do it using nasal temperature and heart rate variability.