A Three-Class Classification of Cognitive Workload Based on EEG Spectral Data

Evaluation of cognitive workload finds its application in many areas, from educational program assessment through professional driver health examination to monitoring the mental state of people carrying out jobs of high responsibility, such as pilots or airline traffic dispatchers. Estimation of multilevel cognitive workload is a task usually realized in a subject-dependent way, while the present research is focused on developing the procedure of subject-independent evaluation of cognitive workload level. The aim of the paper is to estimate cognitive workload level in accordance with subject-independent approach, applying classical machine learning methods combined with feature selection techniques. The procedure of data acquisition was based on registering the EEG signal of the person performing arithmetical tasks divided into six intervals of advancement. The analysis included the stages of preprocessing, feature extraction, and selection, while the final step covered multiclass classification performed with several models. The results discussed show high maximal accuracies achieved: similar to 91% for both the validation dataset and for the cross-validation approach for kNN model.