Editing Workload (section)

==An amount of labor==
{{Labor}}
An old definition refers to workload as the amount of work an individual has to do.<ref name="Jex 1998">Jex, S. M. (1998). Stress and job performance: Theory, research, and implications for managerial practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.</ref> There is a distinction between the actual amount of work and the individual's perception of the workload. <ref name = "Jex 1998"/>
To distinguish the two types, the term 'mental workload' (MWL) is often preferred, clearly indicating the latter type, which refers to the workload experienced by a human, regardless of the task's difficulty. This is because the same underlying task might generate two distinct mental responses and experiences, thus, different [[cognitive load]] amounts, even if executed by the same person. Many definitions of mental workload have been proposed in the years.<ref name="Longo 2022">{{cite journal | author = Longo L., Wickens C. D., Hancock G. and Hancock P. A. | year = 2022 | title = Human Mental Workload: A Survey and a Novel Inclusive Definition| journal = Front. Psychol. | volume = 12 | doi = 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.883321 | pmid = 35719509 | doi-access = free | pmc = 9201728 | hdl = 10147/635016 | hdl-access = free }}{{Creative Commons text attribution notice|cc=by4|from this source=yes}}</ref>

A more recent and operational definition is that "Mental workload (MWL) represents the degree of activation of a finite pool of resources, limited in capacity, while cognitively processing a primary task over time, mediated by external stochastic environmental and situational factors, as well as affected by definite internal characteristics of a human operator, for coping with static task demands, by devoted effort and attention".<ref name="Longo 2022" /> This definition has emerged from a systematic review of the construct of mental workload by analysing many published research works and all the ad-hoc definitions that have emerged in the last 60 years. It has also been influenced by the Multiple Resource Theory, described below, and the notion of human, multiple resources.<ref name="Wickens 200">Wickens, C. D. (2008). Multiple resources and mental workload. Hum. Factors 50, 449–455. doi: 10.1518/001872008X288394 </ref>

The assessment of operator workload has a strong impact on new human-machine systems [[design]]. By evaluating operator workload during the design of a new [[system]], or [[iteration]] of an existing system, problems such as workload [[bottleneck (project management)|bottleneck]]s and [[Mechanical overload (engineering)|overload]] can be identified. As the human operator is a central part of a human-machine system, correcting these problems is necessary to operate safe and efficient systems. An [[operating budget]] may include estimates of the expected workload for a specific activity.