Objective

To use eye tracking to understand the effects of interruptions in different workload conditions as part of a monitoring and change detection task.

Background

Interruptions are detrimental to performance in complex, multitasking domains. There is a need for better display design techniques that help users overcome interruptions regardless of their workload level. This requires understanding a user’s attentional state immediately after an interruption in order to determine what type of display adjustments are most suitable.

Method

An emergency dispatching simulator was developed with a visual primary task and auditory interruptive task. Two levels of workload were induced by varying the number of emergency vehicles to monitor for changes and the rate of changes to monitor. Eye tracking, performance, and subjective measures (NASA-Task Load Index) were collected and analyzed for 41 participants.

Results

As expected, high workload interacted with interruptions to further degrade primary task performance and alter participants’ attention allocation immediately after the interruption. Participants in the high workload condition had more narrowed, slower scan patterns immediately after the interruption as compared to before the interruption, as evidenced by lower scanpath length per second and mean saccade amplitude. However, this change was not observed in low workload.

Conclusion

High workload modulates the effects of interruptions on performance and eye movements. Users in the high workload condition struggle to quickly scan the display in the seconds following an interruption.

Application

The results can provide insight into the type of display adjustments needed right after an interruption in a high-workload environment.

中文翻译：

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眼动追踪评估复杂任务中中断和工作量的影响

客观的

作为监控和变化检测任务的一部分，使用眼动追踪了解不同工作负载条件下中断的影响。

背景

中断不利于复杂的多任务领域的表现。需要更好的显示设计技术来帮助用户克服干扰，无论他们的工作量水平如何。这需要在中断后立即了解用户的注意力状态，以确定哪种类型的显示调整最合适。

方法

开发了具有视觉主要任务和听觉中断任务的紧急调度模拟器。通过改变要监测变化的紧急车辆的数量和要监测的变化率，会产生两个级别的工作量。收集并分析了 41 名参与者的眼动追踪、表现和主观测量（NASA-任务负荷指数）。

结果

正如预期的那样，高工作量与中断相互作用，进一步降低了主要任务的性能，并在中断后立即改变了参与者的注意力分配。与中断前相比，高工作负荷条件下的参与者在中断后立即有更窄、更慢的扫描模式，每秒扫描路径长度和平均扫视幅度较低就证明了这一点。然而，这种变化在低工作量下并未观察到。

结论

高工作负荷调节中断对性能和眼球运动的影响。处于高工作负载状态的用户很难在中断后的几秒钟内快速扫描显示屏。

应用

结果可以让您深入了解在高工作负载环境中中断后立即需要进行的显示调整类型。