MONITORING COGNITIVE LOAD AND HAZARD ANTICIPATION IN TEAMS MANAGING FLOOD INFRASTRUCTURE

Abstract

As with any critical hazard control, managing flood control systems like levees, reservoirs, and drainage networks is a multi-role team effort. It requires cognitive aptitude, hazard anticipation, and mental acuity.  This study specifically examines how mental workload and scenario-response work patterns pulse within eye-tracking, real-time task analysis, and psychophysiology in different operational situations like routine surveillance, emergency situations, and cross-agency coordination.  Advanced hybrid systems like NASA-TLX alongside EEG-derived cognitive workload gauges help assess information processing demands and communication flow failures to measure task regulation. Hazard anticipation is tested using simulations based on scenarios designed to measure participants' foresight and within-strategy intervention methods. The analysis shows that integrated and cohesive teams with shared knowledge perform hazard detection better than their disparate counterparts, alongside highlighting gaps in novice and expert operator cognitive load differences. This model aids in flood risk systems by designing adaptable control systems based on decisions made by real-time analysis. It closes the gap between monitoring cognitive performance with workflow drift and real-time droning frameworks, giving guidance to policymakers, systems and infrastructures engineers, and disaster response teams.