title: Visual scanning behavior and mental workload in aircraft pilots.
abstract: This paper describes an experimental paradigm and a set of preliminary results which demonstrate a relationship between the level of performance on a skilled man-machine control task, the skill of the operator, the level of mental difficulty induced by an additional task imposed on the basic control task, and visual scanning performance. During a constant, simulated piloting task, visual scanning of instruments was found to vary as a function of the level of difficulty of a verbal loading task. The average dwell time of each fixation on the pilot's primary instrument increased as a function of the loading. The scanning behavior was also a function of the estimated skill level of the pilots, with novices being affected by the loading task much more than experts. The results suggest that visual scanning of instruments in a controlled task may be an indicator of both workload and skill.
mesh_terms: D000337:Aerospace Medicine; D001519:Behavior; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D013850:Thinking; D014785:Vision, Ocular