Pupil Dilation and Eye Movements Can Reveal Upcoming Choice in Dynamic Decision-Making

Abstract

In dynamic environments such as air-traffic control, emergency response and security surveillance, there are severe constraints to information processing and decision-making. Human operators must constantly monitor, assess, and integrate incoming information in order to make optimal decisions in such complex environments. In order to maximize operators' performance, there is a need for effective technological support for dynamic decision-making. Eye tracking is one promising avenue that can provide online, nonobtrusive indices of cognitive functioning. Using a simulated maritime decision-making environment, we evaluated whether oculometry may be exploited to foretell the decision made by the operator beforehand. Our results showed that pupil dilation and fixation transitions can reveal the upcoming judgment of the human operator by about half a second before the decision. This finding can be useful to design adaptive support tools for dynamic decision-making by integrating the operator's cognitive state.

The Neuroergonomics of Aircraft Cockpits: The Four Stages of Eye-Tracking Integration to Enhance Flight Safety

“…In this example, however, the automatic maneuver is triggered at the last moment to leave more freedom for the pilot. However, eye-tracking can help to anticipate erroneous visual circuits that may precede degradation of the situation [56]. Important safety issues from such pilot-aircraft interaction imply significant constraints on the probability of a failure condition.…”

“…Except for the adverse cognitive states, eye-tracking can also be used to infer one's intentions. Thus, for example, Peysakhovich et al [56] showed that eye movements and pupil size could be predictive of upcoming decision-making in a simulated maritime environment. In the automobile domain, Zhou et al [57], proposed a method to infer the intention of a truck driver to change lanes based on eye-movements.…”

Application of Eye Tracking Technology in Aviation, Maritime, and Construction Industries: A Systematic Review

“…Visual fatigue caused by aircraft instrument displays has been studied by analysing the effects of electronic displays on pupil diameter [ 78 ]. In a simulated maritime environment, pupil dilation was shown to reveal the upcoming judgment of the human operator [ 38 ].…”

“…However, in simplified simulated environments in which the study environment is presented through a computer monitor, the preferred choice is a remote eye tracker [ 36 ]. We found that the majority of studies that used remote eye tracking systems in aviation (16%) and maritime (33%) scenarios were mainly in the context of air traffic control monitoring [ 7 , 18 , 38 , 48 , 56 , 65 , 69 , 76 ] and evaluation of computer systems and interfaces [ 36 , 37 , 80 ]. In the case of eye tracking research for construction applications, remote eye tracking systems were mainly used in studies that employed images presented in computer monitors to study visual search patterns [ 16 , 19 , 82 , 93 ] and for visual support systems [ 88 ].…”

“…However, SA can be affected by distractive factors and attentional demands that exceed an individual’s attentional resources [ 5 , 89 ]. Thus, SA is considered critical in scenarios that require sequences of multiple interdependent decisions in real time in a continuously changing environment such as hazard identification, error detection, and activity monitoring [ 38 , 162 ].…”