Gaze transition entropy as a measure of attention allocation in a dynamic workspace involving automation

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 14; no. 1; pp. 23405 - 7
• Main Authors: Cui, Zixin, Sato, Tetsuya, Jackson, Austin, Jayarathna, Sampath, Itoh, Makoto, Yamani, Yusuke
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 08.10.2024; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 631/477; 631/477/2811; 639/705/117; 639/705/258; Adult; Attention; Attention - physiology; Attention task; Automation; Aviation; Communication; Entropy; Eye; Eye movements; Eye Movements - physiology; Eye-Tracking Technology; Female; Fixation, Ocular - physiology; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Male; multidisciplinary; Multitasking; Probability; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Task Performance and Analysis; Visual perception; Visual stimuli; Work environment; Young Adult
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-74244-4

Real-world work environments require operators to perform multiple tasks with continual support from an automated system. Eye movement is often used as a surrogate measure of operator attention, yet conventional summary measures such as percent dwell time do not capture dynamic transitions of attention in complex visual workspace. This study analyzed eye movement data collected in a controlled a MATB-II task environment using gaze transition entropy analysis. In the study, human subjects performed a compensatory tracking task, a system monitoring task, and a communication task concurrently. The results indicate that both gaze transition entropy and stationary gaze entropy, measures of randomness in eye movements, decrease when the compensatory tracking task required more continuous monitoring. The findings imply that gaze transition entropy reflects attention allocation of operators performing dynamic operational tasks consistently.