Investigating visual attention during scene perception of safe and unsafe occupational performance

Background. Occupational therapists routinely use observation for evaluation, intervention planning, and prediction of a client's occupational performance and/or safety within the environment. Perception of safety contributes to the decision-making process for discharge or placement recommendations. Purpose. The purpose of this study was to determine if differences exist in safety ratings and eye movements between occupational therapists and nontrained matched individuals while viewing domain-specific versus non-domain-specific images. Method. Ten licensed occupational therapists and 10 age-, gender-, and education levelmatched participants completed this eye-tracking study. Findings. For all image exposure durations, occupational therapists had more polarized safety ratings for stroke-related image content but little evidence of differences in eye movements between groups. Eye movement group differences did not emerge in the regions of interest identified by an independent expert panel. Implications. The results point to a complex relationship between decision making and observational behaviour in occupational assessment and highlight the need to look beyond image features.