Neural Networks Meet Neural Activity: Utilizing EEG for Mental Workload Estimation

Electroencephalography (EEG) offers non-invasive, real-time mental workload assessment, which is crucial in high-stakes domains like aviation and medicine and for advancing brain-computer interface (BCI) technologies. This study introduces a customized ConvNeXt architecture, a powerful convolutional neural network, specifically adapted for EEG analysis. ConvNeXt addresses traditional EEG challenges like high dimensionality, noise, and variability, enhancing the precision of mental workload classification. Using the STEW dataset, the proposed ConvNeXt model is evaluated alongside SVM, EEGNet, and TSception on binary (No vs SIMKAP task) and ternary (SIMKAP multitask) class mental workload tasks. Results demonstrated that ConvNeXt significantly outperformed the other models, achieving accuracies of 95.76% for binary and 95.11% for multi-class classification. This demonstrates ConvNeXt's resilience and efficiency for EEG data analysis, establishing new standards for mental workload evaluation. These findings represent a considerable advancement in EEG-based mental workload estimation, laying the foundation for future improvements in cognitive state measurements. This has broad implications for safety, efficiency, and user experience across various scenarios. Integrating powerful neural networks such as ConvNeXt is a critical step forward in non-invasive cognitive monitoring.