Testing Pupil Size as a Possible Alternative Metric of Physical Fatigue in Automotive Manufacturing Tasks

Abstract

This work investigates using pupil size to track changes in physical fatigue during manufacturing tasks. Participants completed an automotive manufacturing task over three trials. Impulse and peak force were recorded as ground-truth metrics of physical fatigue. Pupil size and blink rate were also recorded by means of a head-mounted eye-tracker. Impulse and peak force decreased between trial 1 and trial 3 suggesting an increase in fatigue. Interestingly, this was accompanied by a significant reduction in pupil size. No difference in blink rate was found. Our study adds to the literature on fatigue assessment suggesting pupil size as a future possible alternative metric for fatigue assessment in manufacturing Ergonomics.