A Pilot Study to Assess Designer’s Mental Stress Using Eye Gaze System and Electroencephalogram

The study of mental stress is of great importance to design in that it enhances our understanding of designer’s cognitive model during the creative design process, among others. As the first step of this effort, this paper focuses on the assessment of mental stress based on the analysis of electroencephalogram (EEG) signals and the eye related data. The stress stimuli used is the computer based Stroop test with six difficulty levels. By using different parameters such as EEG power bands, and other eye behavior data, human mental stresses were assessed. Results indicate a strong correlation between the recorded physiological signals and the emotional state of the designers. This study provides a baseline for the further analysis of designer’s and users mental stresses during design-related tasks.