ABSTRACT

Untimely interaction in critical moments, content that does not capture a user’s attention, and missed opportunities for delivering relevant information are just some of the issues caused by ubiquitous computing devices’ inability to understand their users cognitive engagement. However, current means of inferring cognitive load are, with a few exceptions, based on intrusive methods requiring physical contact of the measurement equipment and the user, thus of limited applicability in ubiquitous computing. In this paper we propose Wi-Mind, a system for remote cognitive load assessment through wireless sensing. Wi-Mind is based on a software-defined radio radar that measures sub-millimeter movements related to a person’s breathing and heart beats, which, in turn allows us to infer the person’s cognitive load. We built and tested the system with 23 volunteers engaged in different tasks. Initial results show that while Wi-Mind manages to detect whether one is engaged in a cognitively demanding task, the inference of the exact cognitive load level remains challenging.

摘要

关键时刻的不合时宜的交互、未吸引用户注意力的内容以及错过提供相关信息的机会只是无处不在的计算设备无法理解其用户认知参与所导致的一些问题。然而，目前推断认知负荷的方法除了少数例外，都是基于需要测量设备和用户物理接触的侵入式方法，因此在普适计算中的适用性有限。在本文中，我们提出了 Wi-Mind，这是一种通过无线传感进行远程认知负荷评估的系统。Wi-Mind 基于软件定义的无线电雷达，可测量与人的呼吸和心跳相关的亚毫米运动，从而使我们能够推断人的认知负荷。我们使用 23 名从事不同任务的志愿者构建并测试了该系统。初步结果表明，虽然 Wi-Mind 设法检测一个人是否从事一项认知要求高的任务，但准确认知负荷水平的推断仍然具有挑战性。