The reduction of lanes and the installation of traffic safety facilities in the highway construction work zones creat short-term disruptions to the normal visual perception, cognition, and driving operations of drivers. This leads to an increase in their mental workload and poses a threat to driving safety. To explore the mental workload characteristics of drivers in prairie highway construction work zones, 40 novice and experienced drivers were selected to conduct driving simulation experiments in typical prairie highway construction work zones. Typical physiological indicators such as eye movement and electrocardiogram were synchronously collected to characterize the level of mental workload of drivers. The changes and differences at different stages of construction work zones were compared and analyzed. The results indicated that the stage of construction work zones and driving experience were significant factors affecting the psychological load of drivers in prairie highway construction work zones. The blink duration and RMSSD value of drivers in each stage of the construction work area were significantly lower than those in the normal driving section, and they reached the minimum value during the adjustment stage of the construction work zone, while the heart rate growth rate showed the opposite trend. The blink duration and RMSSD value of novice drivers in the same stage of construction work area were significantly lower than those of experienced drivers, while the heart rate growth rate was higher than that of experienced drivers. When transitioning from the adjustment stage of the construction work zone to the adaptation stage, the fluctuations of various indicators for novice drivers were smaller than those for experienced drivers. The patterns reflected by Andrews' dimensionality reduction visualization harmonic curve aligned completely with these findings.
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