Impact of back and leg-support exoskeletons on novice users’ attention during repetitive lifting task

Abstract

Industrial exoskeletons have the potential to reduce users' physical strain and fatigue and prevent injuries in manual and labor-intensive workplaces. However, the use of exoskeletons may increase users' attentional load, especially among those new to the technology, due to greater task demands involving adaptation to augmented and shifted physical capabilities, unfamiliarity with the device, and interference resulting from discomfort, device misfit, and mobility restrictions. In this study, 25 novice exoskeleton users performed an attentionally demanding visual target detection task concurrently with a repetitive lifting task, both with and without back- and leg-support exoskeletons using a within-subjects design. The results indicate that attentional task performance significantly declined when wearing exoskeletons, suggesting that exoskeleton use may impair users' attention. Participants' lifting task performance was also slowed when wearing exoskeletons. These findings suggest that exoskeleton use may initially impact workers’ performance on both motor and cognitive tasks. Changes in self-rated mental workload were not correlated with observed attentional decrements, indicating that subjective measure may not effectively detect cognitive demands associated with exoskeleton use.