With demands of work productivity stoning up stress level, researchers have discovered that a person’s eyes could offer a solution. The study showed that the pupil dilation - widening of the pupils of the eyes - could be used to indicate levels of stress of a person in a multitasking environment.
“Many individuals multitask however presently there's no measurement for someone’s mental well-being. However, we have a tendency to found that the size of a pupil could be the key to measuring someone’s mental state while they multitask,” said Jung Hyup Kim, Assistant Professor from the University of Missouri in the US.
To understand how everybody experiences stress otherwise, the researchers used a simulated oil and gas refinery plant control room where they watched, through the motion-capture and eye-tracking technology, because the participants reacted to sudden changes, such as alarms.
During the scenario’s straightforward tasks, the participants’ eye looking out behaviours were additional sure. Yet, because the tasks became more complicated and sudden changes occurred, their eye behaviour became more erratic, the findings discovered.
The team hopes this finding, printed within the International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, will provide a higher insight into how systems should be designed to avoid mentally overloading staff and build a safer working surrounding.
“One day this finding could give employers and educators alike a tool to determine the maximum stress level a person can experience before they become fatigued, and their performance begins to negatively change,” the study said.
Further, the researchers plan to apply this finding to further research involving different age groups and certain biometric measures such as heartbeat, brain signals and muscle or nerve reactions.