Eye Tracking-Based Workload and Performance Assessment for Skill Acquisition

The result of training to improve in a given skill is most often demonstrated by an increase in the relevant performance measures. However, a complementary and at times more informative measure is the mental workload imposed on the performer when doing the task. While a number of varied methods exist for measuring workload, we have chosen to explore physiological and neurological correlates for their low amount of impact and interference on subjects during an experiment. In this study, participants trained on a six-task cognitive battery over four weeks while being simultaneously recorded with remote eye tracking and a host of other neurophysiological instruments. In this preliminary analysis, we found that measures of saccades, fixations, and pupil diameters significantly correlated with task performance over time and at different difficulties, indicating the validity of our task battery as well as the specificity of workload-related eye tracking measures.