Abstract
In this study, we demonstrate the effects of anxiety and cognitive load on eye movement planning in an instrument flight task adhering to a single-sensor-single-indicator data visualisation design philosophy. The task was performed in neutral and anxiety conditions, while a low or high cognitive load, auditory n-back task was also performed. Cognitive load led to a reduction in the number of transitions between instruments, and impaired task performance. Changes in self-reported anxiety between the neutral and anxiety conditions positively correlated with changes in the randomness of eye movements between instruments, but only when cognitive load was high. Taken together, the results suggest that both cognitive load and anxiety impact gaze behavior, and that these effects should be explored when designing data visualization displays
Highlights
Many critical-safety domains require operators to continuously monitor and process a large number of variables
There was no significant interaction between Anxiety condition and Cognitive load, F(1,15) = 1.62, p = .22, ηp2 =
Breakdown of the main effects revealed that cognitive anxiety was higher in the anxiety condition than the neutral condition, and higher in the high cognitive load condition than the low load condition
Summary
Many critical-safety domains require operators to continuously monitor and process a large number of variables. In this digital age, it might seem surprising that many of the interfaces in complex environments (e.g., flight cockpits, air traffic control centers, power plants) continue to observe a “single-sensor-single-indicator” (SSSI; as termed by Goodstein, 1981) design guideline for data visualization—whereby low-level readings from environment sensors are directly and independently communicated to the operator via dedicated instruments. The display of individual data elements communicates the data per se, and allows the operator to monitor the changing relationship between sub-groups of multiple variables. Eye movement planning on Single-Sensor-Single-Indicator displays is vulnerable to user anxiety and cognitive load.
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