Talking and tracking
Highly automated systems can help ease workloads and take over tasks, but they still need human operators to monitor them and step in when things go wrong. Control rooms in safety-critical sectors such as aviation and nuclear power are examples of where these systems are becoming increasingly complex, and where effective supervision is essential.
This could mean using teams to monitor the systems, rather than individuals, and new research has looked at how communication could influence this collaborative approach. It found that rather than being a distraction, allowing team members to communicate with each other improved their visual focus and led to faster reaction times to potential issues.
Researchers used eye-tracking to understand how operators scanned their screens, with half the participants talking to each other over a radio channel and the other half working in silence. They found that those who were allowed to talk spent more time looking at high-risk areas and fixed their eyes on failures faster than those who didn’t have open communication.
The study, published in the journal Ergonomics, said: “These findings offer valuable implications for workplace design, personnel selection and operator training in highly automated environments.”
It added: “Effective ergonomics design should consider communication channels not just as optional features, but as essential elements that influence individual eye-movement patterns.”
