Do Micro-Breaks Increase the Attention Level of an Assembly Worker? An ERP Study

Abstract This study investigates the influence of micro-breaks on the attention of an assembly worker, by utilizing wireless electroencephalographic (EEG) measurements. The EEG feature of interest for this study was the P300 event-related potential (ERP) component and P3a and P3b sub-components, as these components reflects the ones attention level. Nine students participated the study and completed the simulated manual assembly task, replicated from one of our industrial partner. We used sustained attention to response task (SART), instead of real industrial information that indicates the beginning of the operation. SART paradigm is “go/no-go” task, and in this version of SART, participants are required to respond to all “go” stimuli, in sense of initiating the action of manual assembly operation, and to withhold the action otherwise. The “no-go” condition was considered as micro-break period, since the participants had approximately five seconds to rest during a continuous simulated working routine. Fifty ERPs preceding and following the “no-go” condition were compared. The results revealed that, on the group level, the values of the amplitude of the P3b sub-component, which is related to the higher-level attention processing, were significantly higher for the ERPs following than preceding the micro-break period. This finding indicates that the frequent micro-breaks increase the attention of the manual assembly workers.