Modeling and forecasting digital cognitive burnout in students based on multimodal time series and a cross-modal transformer architecture

 
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Abstract

The article discusses the problem of predicting digital cognitive burnout (CKD) in students, a dynamic psychological state formed in a digital educational environment. The problem is formalized as a multidimensional regression problem on multimodal time series, the purpose of which is to predict the trajectory of changes in indicators on the MBI-SS scale over a given time horizon. The author proposes a mathematical model based on a hierarchical cross-modal transformer architecture, including specialized modal encoders, a cross-modal attention mechanism, and a recurrent predictive decoder. To jointly solve the problems of regression (forecasting) and classification (determining the current level of burnout), a composite loss functional has been introduced that takes into account not only the accuracy of the forecast, but also the smoothness of its temporal dynamics, as well as the correctness of the classification. Experimental verification of the model on synthetic data demonstrated a decrease in the average absolute prediction error compared to the basic approaches and confirmed the interpretability of intermodal interactions based on the analysis of attention matrices. The results obtained form the formal computational basis for the development of early detection systems for the risk of digital cognitive burnout in educational platforms.

General Information

Keywords: digital cognitive burnout, predictive modeling, multimodal time series, cross-modal transformer, data fusion, mathematical model

Journal rubric: Data Analysis

Article type: scientific article

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17759/mda.2026160304

Received 12.02.2026

Revised 23.07.2026

Accepted

Published

For citation: Yuryeva, N.E. (2026). Modeling and forecasting digital cognitive burnout in students based on multimodal time series and a cross-modal transformer architecture. Modelling and Data Analysis, 16(3), 91–103. (In Russ.). https://doi.org/10.17759/mda.2026160304

© Yuryeva N.E., 2026

License: CC BY-NC 4.0

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Information About the Authors

Nataliya E. Yuryeva, Candidate of Science (Engineering), Head of the Laboratory of Information Technologies for Psychological Diagnostics, Research Fellow of the Laboratory of Quantitative Psychology of the Center for Information Technologies for Psychological Research of the Faculty of Information Technology, Executive Secretary of the journal "Modeling and Data Analysis", Moscow State University of Psychology and Education, Moscow, Russian Federation, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1419-876X, e-mail: yurieva.ne@gmail.com

Conflict of interest

The author declares no conflict of interest.

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