The assessment of Heart Rate Variability (HRV) and Task Load Index (TLI) as physiological markers for physical stress

Abstract

This paper presents a new research study relating to the sensitivity of a number of psycho-physiological markers to physical workload. The workload profile was of a cyclicloading type and the markers included the Heart Rate Variability (HRV) and the Task Load Index (TLI) as ECG and EEG representatives, respectively. These markers were smoothed to extract their trends and to study their respective correlations with the workload. The average values relating to the 'rest'-'load'-'rest' sequence showed that these markers correlate with the workload with a decrease of HRV and increase of TLI values. The effect of the amount of workload on these markers showed that HRV decreases as the workload increases and vice versa, while TLI showed that it increases as the workload increases and vice versa. © 2009 Springer-Verlag.