Changes in task demands can have delayed adverse impacts on performance. This phenomenon, known as the workload history effect, is especially of concern in dynamic work domains where operators manage fluctuating task demands. The existing workload history literature does not depict a consistent picture regarding how these effects manifest, prompting research to consider measures that are informative on the operator's process. One promising measure is visual attention patterns, due to its informativeness on various cognitive processes. To explore its ability to explain workload history effects, participants completed a task in an unmanned aerial vehicle command and control testbed where workload transitioned gradually and suddenly. The participants’ performance and visual attention patterns were studied over time to identify workload history effects. The eye-tracking analysis consisted of using a recently developed eye-tracking metric called coefficient K , as it indicates whether visual attention is more focal or ambient. The performance results found workload history effects, but it depended on the workload level, time elapsed, and performance measure. The eye-tracking analysis suggested performance suffered when focal attention was deployed during low workload, which was an unexpected finding. When synthesizing these results, they suggest unexpected visual attention patterns can impact performance immediately over time. Further research is needed; however, this work shows the value of including a real-time visual attention measure, such as coefficient K , as a means to understand how the operator manages varying task demands in complex work environments.

中文翻译：

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我们所看到的是否塑造了历史？检查工作负载历史作为性能和环境/焦点视觉注意力的函数

任务需求的变化可能会对绩效产生延迟的不利影响。这种被称为工作负载历史效应的现象在操作员管理波动的任务需求的动态工作域中尤其受到关注。现有的工作量历史文献并没有描绘出关于这些影响如何表现的一致图景，这促使研究考虑对运营商流程提供信息的措施。一种有希望的测量方法是视觉注意模式，因为它对各种认知过程的信息丰富。为了探索其解释工作量历史影响的能力，参与者在无人机指挥和控制试验台上完成了一项任务，该试验台的工作量逐渐突然转变。随着时间的推移研究参与者的表现和视觉注意力模式，以确定工作量历史影响。眼动追踪分析包括使用最近开发的称为系数的眼动追踪指标ķ，因为它表明视觉注意力是更集中的还是环境的。性能结果发现了工作负载历史影响，但这取决于工作负载级别、经过的时间和性能度量。眼动追踪分析表明，在低工作量期间部署焦点注意力时性能会受到影响，这是一个意外的发现。在综合这些结果时，他们建议出乎意料的视觉注意模式会随着时间的推移立即影响性能。需要进一步研究；然而，这项工作显示了包含实时视觉注意力测量的价值，例如系数ķ，作为了解操作员如何在复杂工作环境中管理不同任务需求的一种手段。