The use of multi-attribute task battery in mental workload studies: A scoping review

Abstract

Multi-Attribute Task Battery (MATB) is a software that has been arguably utilized in many ergonomics/human factors studies, including in the topic of mental workload. However, the use of this well-known program in diverse investigations has not yet been systematically tracked. Furthermore, it may be argued that a critical appraisal of MATB is urgently needed so that future researchers and users can take several crucial factors into account when planning a study or experiment using MATB. The aim of this paper is to comprehensively identify and review the use of MATB software in published studies. This aim might be accomplished by achieving two goals: (1) systematic discovery of published papers in literature databases and (2) categorization of research according to pertinent topics. In this paper, thirty-one articles were included for analysis after carefully screening for their eligibility. Our scoping review finds that MATB is a beneficial program for creating multitasking environments in general, with aviation being the area where it has been used the most. The program was also extensively used for studies on mental workload, especially by producing various stimuli that ultimately result in varying degrees of task demand or difficulty. Moreover, to successfully use MATB, researchers must be aware of a few operational issues and criticisms.