Reducing occupational injuries attributed to inattentional blindness in the construction industry

Abstract

The construction industry has been identified as one of the most hazardous industries in many parts of the world. Many construction accidents are caused by carelessness or inattentiveness. Workers on construction worksites have to perform multiple tasks. The issue of labor safety is ordinarily one of those tasks but not the main one. Workers can be focused on their main task and ignore dangers in their environment, a condition known as “inattentional blindness”. In this article, we created a video and then applied our experimental design to discuss the features of inattentional blindness in construction site safety. The results show that most participants were aware of the obvious safety issues, but few participants were able to immediately find dynamic hazards. The present study also found that some particular kinds of workers are more expected to suffer the harm caused by inattentional blindness. The findings identified in this article provide a direction for more effective safety management strategies and injury prevention programs.