An Electroencephalograph-Based Method for Judging the Difficulty of a Task Given to a Learner

Various factors affect learning, such as the quality and difficulty of the learning contents and the learner's proficiency, and it may be possible to detect their effects by using the learner's browsing and edit history as well as biological information such as brain waves and eye movement. We investigated the use of brain waves to estimate the degree of difficulty of a learning task. The first experiment using a simple typing test confirmed a previous finding that the β-wave to α-wave ratio increases with task difficulty. Furthermore, the low-β-wave to low-α-wave ratio, where "low" means low frequency, observed under various learning conditions was found to depend on the frequencies of the waves, and the value of the ratio was shown to represent task difficulty. The second experiment in which the change in brain waves was measured using a simple electroencephalograph (EEG) as the examinees became used to the task showed that the values for the examinees who reported that the task was easy fell gradually, supporting our finding that the value of the ratio represents task difficulty. This information could be used to dynamically adjust task difficulty and thereby optimize the learning effect.