The Rules of Attention Shift on Display and Control Terminal Base on Situation Awareness

To investigate the rules of a user’s attention allocation and attention shift when they are using a display control terminal, using both methods of information processing, situation awareness theory and eye-movement tracking technology were applied to analyze the influence of different interface element layouts on attention allocation and attention shift. In this study, 26 participants performed an operating task under different display control interfaces, which were divided into two types and used to simulate different situation awareness levels, and the fixation point distribution was recorded as the evaluation index. The participants were asked to perform a daily washing task and a fixed task on the simulation interface of a cylinder washing machine. The experimental results revealed that different situations and different situational awareness levels of the participants influenced the rule of attention allocation and transfer; the information elements on the interface play a key role in the user's cognitive process. The experimental results and users’ subjectivities were generally in agreement; thus, the present study could provide ergonomic evidence with display and control terminal interface design.