Metrics for objectively assessing operator training using eye gaze patterns

Process plant operators rely on their knowledge of process cause-and-effect relationships during abnormal situation management. Novice operators develop such process knowledge during training. Hence, holistic assessment of operators’ training is essential to ensure process safety. Currently, during...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Process safety and environmental protection 2021-12, Vol.156, p.508-520
Main Authors: Shahab, Mohammed Aatif, Iqbal, Mohd Umair, Srinivasan, Babji, Srinivasan, Rajagopalan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attention
Cognition & reasoning
Cognitive ability
Correspondence analysis
Eye movements
Eye-tracking
HMI
Information processing
Learning
Man-machine interfaces
Operator training
Operators
Training evaluation
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Summary:Process plant operators rely on their knowledge of process cause-and-effect relationships during abnormal situation management. Novice operators develop such process knowledge during training. Hence, holistic assessment of operators’ training is essential to ensure process safety. Currently, during training, operators’ process understanding is evaluated using criteria such as successful completion, task based measures, and operator actions that ignore their cognitive behavior. In this work, we propose an eye-tracking-based approach that uses the operator’s attention allocation during different pre-specified training scenarios along with process data, alarm information, and operator actions. Our approach is based on the precept that an operator would focus their attention on those variables on the human-machine interface that they believe have a direct causal relationship to the situation at hand. Also, expert operators seek time-based information for proactive monitoring. Accordingly, to quantify the progress of a novice operator’s learning, we develop two metrics — association metric and salience metric — using correspondence analysis of operators' eye gaze. To evaluate the applicability of the metrics, we conducted experiments with ten participants who performed 486 tasks. Statistical studies reveal that the proposed metrics can quantify operators’ learning and thus can be used to objectively evaluate training effectiveness.
ISSN:0957-5820
1744-3598
DOI:10.1016/j.psep.2021.10.043