The motivation behind using physiological measures to estimate cognitive activity is typically to build technology that can help people to understand themselves and their work, or indeed for systems to do so and adapt. While functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) has been shown to reliably reflect manipulations of mental workload in different work tasks, we still need to establish whether fNIRS can differentiate variety within common office-like tasks in order to broaden our understanding of the factors involved in tracking them in real working conditions. 20 healthy participants (8 females, 12 males), whose work included office-like tasks, took part in a user study that investigated a) the sensitivity of fNIRS for measuring mental workload variations in representations of everyday reading and writing tasks, and b) how representations of natural interruptions are reflected in the data. Results supported fNIRS measuring PFC activation in differentiating between workload levels for reading tasks but not writing tasks in terms of increased oxygenated haemoglobin (O2Hb) and decreased deoxygenated haemoglobin (HHb), for harder conditions compared to easier conditions. There was considerable support for fNIRS in detecting changes in workload levels due to interruptions. Variations in workload levels during the interruptions could be understood in relation to spare capacity models. These findings may guide future work into sustained monitoring of cognitive activity in real-world settings.

使用生理学方法来估计认知活动的动机通常是建立可以帮助人们了解自己和工作的技术，或者实际上是使系统了解并适应的技术。尽管功能近红外光谱（fNIRS）已被证明可以可靠地反映出在不同工作任务中对精神工作量的操纵，但我们仍然需要确定fNIRS是否可以在常见的办公室任务中区分差异，以加深我们对与之相关的因素的理解。在真实的工作条件下跟踪他们。20名健康参与者（8名女性，12名男性）的工作包括类似于办公室的任务，他们参加了一项用户研究，调查了a）fNIRS对衡量日常阅读和写作任务中心理工作量变化的敏感性，b）自然中断的表示如何在数据中反映出来。结果表明，fNIRS通过测量PFC激活来区分读取任务的工作量水平，而不区分写入任务的增加的氧合血红蛋白（O2Hb）和减少的脱氧血红蛋白（HHb），与较轻松的条件相比更难。fNIRS在检测由于中断而导致的工作负载水平变化方面获得了相当大的支持。相对于备用容量模型，可以理解中断期间工作负载水平的变化。这些发现可能会指导未来的工作进入对现实世界中认知活动的持续监控。结果表明，fNIRS通过测量PFC激活来区分读取任务的工作量水平，而不区分写入任务的增加的氧合血红蛋白（O2Hb）和减少的脱氧血红蛋白（HHb），与较轻松的条件相比更难。fNIRS在检测由于中断而导致的工作负载水平变化方面获得了相当大的支持。相对于备用容量模型，可以理解中断期间工作负载水平的变化。这些发现可能会指导未来的工作进入对现实世界中认知活动的持续监控。结果表明，fNIRS通过测量PFC激活来区分读取任务的工作量水平，而不区分写入任务的增加的氧合血红蛋白（O2Hb）和减少的脱氧血红蛋白（HHb），与较轻松的条件相比更难。fNIRS在检测由于中断而导致的工作负载水平变化方面获得了相当大的支持。相对于备用容量模型，可以理解中断期间工作负载水平的变化。这些发现可能会指导未来的工作进入对现实世界中认知活动的持续监控。fNIRS在检测由于中断而导致的工作负载水平变化方面获得了相当大的支持。相对于备用容量模型，可以理解中断期间工作负载水平的变化。这些发现可能会指导未来的工作进入对现实世界中认知活动的持续监控。fNIRS在检测由于中断而导致的工作负载水平变化方面获得了相当大的支持。相对于备用容量模型，可以理解中断期间工作负载水平的变化。这些发现可能会指导未来的工作进入对现实世界中认知活动的持续监控。