PPIG 2015

Evaluation of Familiarity and

Mental Workload in Human Computer
Interaction With Integrated Development
Environments using Single-Channel EEG
Stephen Sigurnjak
ssigurnjak@uclan.ac.uk

Alex Shenfield
a.shenfield@shu.ac.uk

Shahin Rostami
srostami@bournemouth.ac.uk

Oluwatoyin Fakorede
ofakorede@bournemouth.a

Presentation Overview
The Challenge
Why EEG
How does EEG relates to HCI
The Experiment
Results
Conclusion
Questions?

The Challenge

The Challenge
Perceptual Processor

WORKING MEMORY
VISUAL IMAGE
STORE

AUDITORY
IMAGE STORE

LONG TERM MEMORY

Cognitive Processor

Motor Processor

Evaluation Methods to Monitor HCI and UI

Quality

Behavioral studies
Completion times
Error rates

Inquiries
Qualitative feedback from questionnaires
Interviews

Physiological measures
Mouse movement
Eye motions and gaze
Heart rates

Neuroimaging
Sensors which records brain activity

Only Neuroimaging measures cognitive processing

The Challenge

Why EEG?
Neuroscience research
Expensive to conduct
Electroencephalography
(Single-channel dry EEG)
Less expensive
Less restrictive
Widely used in research and clinical studies
Safe for extended use

EEG Applications

Why EEG?

Research HCI issues

Medical applications
Adaptive user interfaces
Measure of mental effort and familiarity of
Participants when tracing shapes using their
Non-dominant hand.

EEG Device
Neurosky Mindwave headset

Why EEG?

Users State
Patterns
Mental Workload
Attention
Vigilance
Fatigue
Familiarity
Error Recognition

EEG and HCI

The Experiment

12 volunteers
All reported to have
normal or corrected-tonormal vision
No known history of
neurological or
physiological disorder
Participants were reported
to have not used the
Integrated Development
Environment (IDEs)
previously

Each participant
performed eight trials
involving HCI
Either of two software
IDEs was considered
The participants were
required to follow clearly
defined instructions to
complete tasks
The IDEs considered were
Visual Studio by Microsoft
and Eclipse by the Eclipse
Foundation

Two shell scripts were

developed and executed
Two computers were used
during the experiment
Two facilitators were
involved.

The Experiment
Data
Acquisition
System Architecture Diagram here

The Experiment
Data Acquisition
Task Instructions

The Experiment
Data Acquisition
UML activity diagram

The Experiment
Data Acquisition
Graphical User Interface for the data acquisition
application

Result 1
Plots of the postprocessed Mental Effort
data over time obtained
from the EEG head-set
for participants using
the Visual Studio IDE

Result 2
Plots of the postprocessed Familiarity
data over time obtained
from the EEG head-set
for participants using
the Visual Studio IDE

Result 3
Plots of the postprocessed Mental Effort
data over time obtained
from the EEG head-set
for participants using
the Eclipse IDE

Result 4
Plots of the postprocessed Familiarity
data over time obtained
from the EEG head-set
for participants using
the Eclipse IDE

Conclusion

Eclipse users finished quicker than Visual Studio users

Eclipse users made fewer errors than Visual Studio users
Visual Studio IDE participants took longer to become
Familiar with the interface
Correlation between mental effort and familiarity data with
Observation made by both the facilitator and participant
Low-cost EEG for evaluating HCI in terms of familiarity and
Mental effort is feasible
Drawback includes unpredictable behavior of participants,
For example, stop referring to the exercise sheets

References/ Further reading

Antonenko, P., Paas, F., Grabner, R., & van Gog, T. (2010). Using
electroencephalography to measure cognitive load. Educational
Psychology Review, 22 (4), 425 - 438.
Chu, K., & Wong, C. Y. (2014). Player's attention and meditation level of
input devices on mobile gaming. In User science and engineering (iuser), 2014 3rd international conference on (pp. 13{17).
Cutrell, E., & Tan, D. (2008). BCI for passive input in HCI. In Proceedings
of chi (Vol. 8, pp.1-3).
Imamizu, H., Miyauchi, S., Tamada, T., Sasaki, Y., Takino, R., PuEtz, B., . .
. Kawato, M.(2000). Human cerebella activity reflecting an acquired
internal model of a new tool. Nature, 403 (6766), 192-195.
Kitamura, Y., Yamaguchi, Y., Hiroshi, I., Kishino, F., & Kawato, M. (2003).
Things happening in the brain while humans learn to use new tools. In
Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing

References/ Further reading

Lee, J. C., & Tan, D. S. (2006). Using a low-cost
electroencephalograph for task classifation in HCI research. In
Proceedings of the 19th annual ACM symposium on user interface
software
and technology (pp. 81{90).
Mak, J. N., Chan, R. H., &Wong, S. W. (2013a). Evaluation of mental
workload in visual-motor task: Spectral analysis of single-channel
frontal EEG. In Industrial electronics society, IECON 2013-39th annual
conference of the IEEE (pp. 8426 - 8430).
Mak, J. N., Chan, R. H., & Wong, S. W. (2013b). Spectral modulation of
frontal EEG activities during motor skill acquisition: Task familiarity
monitoring using single-channel EEG. In Engineering in medicine and
biology society (EMBC), 2013 35th annual international conference of
the IEEE (pp. 5638 - 5641).

Contacts
More Information?
Stephen Sigurnjak
ssigurnjak@uclan.ac.
uk
School of Computing,
Engineering & Physical
Sciences,
University of Central
Shahin Rostami
Lancashire

srostami@bournemouth.ac.u
k
Faculty of Science and Technology,
Bournemouth University

Alex Shenfield
a.shenfield@shu.ac.uk
Faculty of Arts, Computing ,
Engineering & Sciences,
Sheffield Hallam University

Oluwatoyin Fakorede
ofakorede@bournemouth.ac
.uk
Faculty of Science and Technology,
Bournemouth University

Thank you,
any questions?