SMART-TeleLoad: A new graphic user interface to generate affective loads for teleoperation

Accurately measuring and understanding affective loads, such as cognitive and emotional loads, is crucial in the field of human–robot interaction (HRI) research. Although established assessment tools exist for gauging working memory capability in psychology and cognitive neuroscience, few tools are available to specifically measure affective loads. To address this gap, we propose a practical stimulus tool for teleoperated human–robot teams. The tool is comprised of a customizable graphical user interface and subjective questionnaires to measure affective loads. We validated that this tool can invoke different levels of affective loads through extensive user experiments.