Visual Dwell Time on instruments is associated with Manual Docking Performance

Abstract

Manually controlled spacecraft docking on a space station is an operational task that poses high demands on cognitive functioning and visual attention. Effective processing of visual information might be crucial for success. Eye tracking can reveal the operator’s attentional focus in an unobtrusive way. Furthermore, the dilation of the pupil has been used as an indicator of task difficulty and mental workload. During docking, this might help to monitor performance and predict decrements due to mental overload. We hypothesized that gaze dwell time on instruments is associated with docking performance and that pupil diameter is associated with the difficulty of the docking task. Eye movements and pupil diameter were recorded in twelve participants (five women and seven men, M = 35.5 years old) of the six-degree head-down tilt bed rest study AGBRESA during 20 training sessions with the 6df learning program for spacecraft docking. We observed a significant positive relationship between visual checks of speed and distance to the docking point and the accuracy of the docking maneuver. However, pupil dilation turned out to be inappropriate as potential indicator of task difficulty and workload, because it was highly susceptible to differences in screen luminosity. In conclusion, we present first evidence that eye tracking can provide information related to docking accuracy. Future studies are needed to confirm whether performance can indeed be predicted via parameters of visual information sampling