Making mistakes at work? Maybe you have a boring job!

William Atkins
Tuesday, 22 April 2008 20:54

Science - Health

According to BBC News, the research team is looking into ways to develop a biofeedback system, or “early-warning brain monitor,” for people in “critical situations,” such as pilots and air traffic controllers.

Neuroscientist Tom Eichele (University of Bergen, Norway), one of the researchers, states, “We might be able to build a device (that could be placed) on the heads of people that makes these easy decisions.” [BBC News: “Dull jobs really do numb the mind”]

He continues to explain, "We can measure the signal and give feedback to the user that your brain is in the state where your decisions are not going to be the right one."

The researchers compared the brain’s activity during these boring tasks to being on “autopilot.” The brain minimized its activities for such boring tasks, almost turning itself into an automatic state, or autopilot.

Currently fMRI scanners are expensive and large—thus, making them unavailable to be used for a wide assortment of boring jobs.

However, similar EEG (electroencephalograph) devices, which also measure brain activity, are being designed and developed that are lightweight and portable.

The researchers predict that in about ten to fifteen years such EEG devices could be commonly used to prevent common mistakes when performing a boring task, especially when such boring tasks might compromise the safety and health of the user (such as someone driving a car) or of other people that the user is directly responsible for, such as aircraft passengers.

Currently, the researchers are studying why these brain patterns occur. They hope to study mistakes in people of different age groups, genders, and other characteristics in order to develop a broader picture of the problem. They also hope to test how closely the fMRI scans relate to the EEC readings.

The authors of the study are: Tom Eichele (University of Bergen, Norway), Stefan Debener (Medical Research Council, Institute of Hearing Research, United Kingdom), Vince D. Calhoun (MIND Institute, University of New Mexico, and Yale University, United States), Karsten Specht (University of Bergen and Haukeland University Hospital, Norway), Andreas K. Engel (University Medical Center Hamburg, Germany), Kenneth Hugdahl (University of Bergen and Haukeland University Hospital, Norway), D.Yves von Cramon (Medical Research Council Institute of Hearing Research, United Kingdom), and Markus Ullsperger (Medical Research Council Institute of Hearing Research and , United Kingdom, and Max Planck Institute for Neurological Research, Germany).