journal article·2023-01-29Open access

Assessing the Relationship between Cognitive Workload, Workstation Design, User Acceptance and Trust in Collaborative Robots

Tommaso Panchetti, Luca Pietrantoni, Gabriele Puzzo, Luca Gualtieri, Federico Fraboni

Applied Sciences· Volume 13· Issue 3

Abstract

Collaborative robots are revolutionising the manufacturing industry and the way workers perform their tasks. When designing shared workspaces between robots and humans, human factors and ergonomics are often overlooked. This study assessed the relationship between cognitive workload, workstation design, user acceptance and trust in collaborative robots. We combined subjective and objective data to evaluate the cognitive workload during an assembly task in three different scenarios in which we manipulated various features of the workstation and interaction modalities. Our results showed that participants experienced a reduction in cognitive workload in each of the three trials, indicating an improvement in cognitive performance. Additionally, we found that user acceptance predicted perceived stress across the trials but did not significantly impact the cognitive workload. Trust was not found to moderate the relationship between cognitive workload and perceived stress. This study has the potential to make a significant contribution to the field of collaborative assembly systems by providing valuable insights and helping to bridge the gap between researchers and practitioners. This study can potentially impact companies looking to improve safety, productivity and efficiency.
Source: crossref · Quality: baseline

Research context

OpenAlex topics: Human-Automation Interaction and Safety · Occupational Health and Safety Research · Ergonomics and Human Factors

SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.

Affiliations

Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, 40126 Bologna, Italy

Faculty of Science and Technology, Industrial Engineering and Automation (IEA), Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, 39100 Bolzano, Italy

Funding

European Commission, Horizon Europe project SESTOSENSO—Physical Intelligence for Smart and Safe Human–Robot Interaction

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