Multimodal EEG and Eye-Tracking Assessment of Perceived Mental Workload and Situation Awareness in a Visual Display Terminal Simulation Task.

Visual display terminal (VDT) tasks are common in safety-critical systems, where operators must continuously monitor dynamic information and maintain situation awareness (SA). This study examined whether EEG and eye-tracking technologies could support the assessment of SA and perceived mental workload in VDT tasks. Short-term incentive conditions were included only as an exploratory contextual factor. Thirty participants completed a SATEST-based VDT simulation task while subjective scales, behavioral performance, EEG signals, and eye-tracking data were collected during the perception, comprehension, and projection stages of SA. Physiological indicators associated with SA differences and workload-related patterns were examined using SART-based and NASA-TLX-based grouping, supplemented by continuous-score Spearman correlation and exploratory linear regression analyses. The incentive analysis was exploratory, underpowered for small-to-medium effects, and was not designed to validate an incentive-based cognitive-state regulation strategy. Saccade-related eye-tracking indicators differed between relatively higher-SA and lower-SA groups across several stages (