Analysis and Evaluation of Eye Behavior for Marine Operation Training - A Pilot Study

Area of Science:

• Maritime Training and Simulation
• Human Factors Engineering
• Cognitive Psychology

Background:

• Effective situation awareness is critical for safe marine operations.
• Traditional methods for evaluating situation awareness in training are often subjective.
• Eye tracking technology offers objective insights into operator attention and cognitive states.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a new analysis approach for evaluating situation awareness in marine operation training.
• To introduce a group-wise scanpath similarity comparison method.
• To define and utilize an 'Expert zone' for performance evaluation based on expert eye movement patterns.

Main Methods:

• Utilizing eye tracking technology to capture and analyze visual attention during marine operations.
• Developing a scanpath similarity comparison method for group-wise analysis.
• Introducing the 'Expert zone' concept to benchmark novice performance against expert eye behavior.
• Conducting a pilot study involving a crane lifting experiment with novice and expert operators.

Main Results:

• The proposed group-wise evaluation method effectively assesses operator performance.
• Analysis revealed similarities and dissimilarities in eye behavior between novice and expert operators.
• Specific operational segments (load descending to seabed immersion) were analyzed for distinct visual attention patterns.
• The 'Expert zone' concept provided a quantifiable measure for novice performance evaluation.

Conclusions:

• The novel eye-tracking analysis approach is effective for evaluating situation awareness in marine training.
• Scanpath similarity and 'Expert zone' metrics offer objective and group-wise performance assessment.
• Understanding expert-novice eye behavior differences can inform training program improvements.
• This methodology enhances the objective evaluation of operator performance in complex marine tasks.