Effect of Working Experience on Air Traffic Controller Eye Movement

Eye movement is an important indicator of information-seeking behavior and provides insight into cognitive strategies which are vital for decision-making. Various measures based on eye movements have been proposed to capture humans’ ability to process information in a complex environment. The effectiveness of these measures has not yet been fully explored in the field of air traffic management. This paper presents a comparative study on eye-movement measures in air traffic controllers with different levels of working experience. Two commonly investigated oculomotor behaviors, fixation and saccades, together with gaze entropy, are examined. By comparing the statistical properties of the relevant metrics, it is shown that working experience has a notable effect on eye-movement patterns. Both fixation and saccades differ between qualified and novice controllers, with the former type of controller employing more efficient searching strategies. These findings are useful in enhancing the quality of controller training and contributing to an understanding of the information-seeking mechanisms humans use when executing complex tasks.