How Shared Visual Attention Patterns of Pairs Unfold Over Time when Workload Changes

Data rich environments rely on operator collaboration to manage workload changes. This work explores the relationship between operators' visual attention and collaborative performance during these workload changes. Percent gaze overlap and percent recurrence were calculated over time for best and worst performing pairs of participants who experienced low and high workload in an unmanned aerial vehicle command and control testbed. It was found that the best performing pairs had higher values for both metrics after workload changed. These results suggest successful collaborative performance is dependent on both continuous high levels of synchronized visual attention and coordinated sequences of visual attention. This work has the potential to inform the design of real-time technology.