Selective visual attention during multiple-process control

Abstract

During supervisory control eye movements are central for the performance of aimed actions and the development of working strategies. In order to investigate visual and informational workload the behavioural pattern has been analysed. The presented results provide evidence, that the contextual structure of the task determines the uptake of specific visual informations. The amount of visual workload affecting the subject during the control of four simulated processes is determined by their kinetics. This effect is due to the limited capacity of the subject to deal with more than one process state within a certain time interval. The subject is forced to devide his or her visual attention between different processes. With respect to the amount of information processed by the subject characteristics of the scanpath are described on the basis of the state space in order to obtain criteria which show, that the analysis of eye movements provides an appropriate tool for the evaluation of visual workload during multiple-task performance.