Eye-Tracking Technology for Construction Safety: A Feasibility Study

Abstract

A construction site is a harsh environment demanding entire human senses and attention, even for regular scheduled tasks. Many accidents occur on construction sites because of inability of workers to identify hazards and make timely decisions. To understand why some hazards go unseen, it is crucial to study how workers perceive the site. The objective of this research is to leverage eye-tracking technology to study workers' gazing pattern in a construction environment. A real picture from an active construction site is modified to introduce hazards and a desktop experiment is conducted, in which, subjects are asked to identify the hazards. A different group of subjects are made to make similar observations on a 2D sketch-representation of the same construction scenario. Eye-tracking data gathered from their observations is analyzed to understand when, how, and which hazards do they recognize and the pattern of recognition is studied. The results of this study will enhance our understanding on the visual factors that govern attention and help workers recognize potential hazards in a construction site. The comparison between the observation pattern in real and sketch-representation is done to assess how subjects respond to artificial images compared to real images. This comparison will test the feasibility of using virtual reality for safety training and simulations.

Application of Eye Tracking Technology in Aviation, Maritime, and Construction Industries: A Systematic Review

“…These devices allow the capture of the highest-quality data by restricting the participant’s head movement, although they are less realistic and natural. The saccade resolution of a remote eye tracker fitted with a head-supporting tower is two to five times greater than that of a remote/head-free eye tracker [ 16 ]. However, the restrictive setting of head-supporting towers limits their use for dynamic environments.…”

“…A good tool for measuring eye movement and eye position information is by using an eye tracking device. This unique tool allows eye movement information to be recorded, which can help to assess an individual’s mental state, to understand cognitive processing and behaviour, and to interpret individuals’ responses to different visual stimuli [ 16 ].…”

A Data Model and Task Space for Data of Interest (DOI) Eye-Tracking Analyses

“…Such experimentation can thus lend significant more data than traditional eye-tracking experimentation and facilitate novel workflows. While it is true that data collected in this way is of less ecological validity than that collected in situ, initial studies have shown that viewing patterns captured in virtual scenes may approximate those captured in real scenes well [50]. [4].…”

Advancing Safety by In-Depth Assessment of Workers Attention and Perception

“…Examples of technology-oriented solutions include efforts such as sharing safety knowledge using a mobile device [9], real-time data collection and visualization technology for construction safety [10] and [11], safety assessment of construction site using geographic information systems (GIS) [12], visionbased recognition of construction equipment and hazard detection [13], game technology combined with visualizing safety assessment [14], autonomous jobsite safety proximity [15], location-aware sensing technology to determine a worker's safety situation regarding proximity to dangers [16], use of digital models to enhance construction safety [17], enhancing hazard recognition with augmented virtually [18], and the applications of building information modeling (BIM) to investigate potential fall hazards [19]. Among these studies few of them have investigated the application of eye-tracking technology in construction safety [20]. Dzeng et al [21] used an eye-tracking system to compare how the experienced and novice workers pay attention to the obvious and unobvious hazards.…”