Measuring cognitive load in a simulation game

Cognitive Load (CL) measurement has gained interest across various domains as performance and efficiency can be affected if CL is not properly managed. The human cognitive structure has some limitations which are important to consider when accomplishing a task. Additionally, the study on how a primary task is impacted when a secondary task is accomplished has been studied. This affects to the working load memory and, therefore, to the CL. This work uses a tool, a multitasking game, that allows to infer cognitive load. This game considers a primary task and different types of secondary tasks: visual, memory and auditory. An experimental test has been performed using this game and objective, subjective and performance information has been gathered. The objective information was obtained thorough different sensors, the subjective information through the NASA-TLX and Paas questionnaires and the performance information through a score value provided by the game. An impact on performance on the primary task was perceived when secondary tasks were activated. Nevertheless, this impact is different depending on the type of secondary task accomplished. The memory task seems to impact the most on the performance on the primary task. Additionally, the subjective information did not correlate with any other variable gathered along the whole experimental test. With respect to the objective information, the eye measurements correlate with different physiological variables, showing that they provide reliable information with respect to measuring CL. Finally, interesting results on how the different difficulty levels impact performance is obtained.