Forward-Looking: Measuring Attention Allocation for Evaluating Supervisory Control in a Complex and Dynamic Lab System

The objective of the present study was to identify suitable eye movement parameters to measure and evaluate human operators' attention allocation behavior in our complex and dynamic lab system. This supervisory control lab system comprises a human operator and a microworld including the pursuit tracking performance of two other participants. Based on a discussion of approaches of research projects related to our lab system, several parameters were selected to investigate human operators' eye movements. These operators had to optimize the tracking performance of the other participants by the use of a specific interface. We examined the relationship between these eye movement parameters and two control action variables reflecting human operators' system understanding. The results indicate that adequate eye movement parameters could be identified in this first approach of evaluating human operators' attention allocation in our lab system.