Neuroergonomics and Its Relation to Psychophysiology

Psychophysiology measures physiological activities originating from the autonomic nervous system, including eye movement, heart rate, electromyography, and skin conductance resistance, while operators conduct behavioral tasks. Researchers have distinguished psychophysiology from neuroergonomics, the latter of which focuses on neural activities in brain functions using brain imaging techniques. Psychophysiology has served as a supplementary measure for representing indicators of the neural activity levels involved in physical and cognitive work. In affective ergonomics, however, the brain’s subcortical pathways play a key role, making it difficult to depend solely on the brain imaging techniques used in industrial task settings to quantify and predict human performance. In this chapter, the authors review and compare the strengths and weaknesses of psychophysiology metrics and their applications to cognitive/affective engineering.