Developing a Computational Spatial Attention Metric to Examine Workers’ Visual Search Efficiency at Hazardous Construction Jobsites

Workers are required to efficiently distribute their limited attentional resources to the surrounding environment to maintain their situational awareness at hazardous jobsites. While previous studies have argued that the hazard identification performance of workers is significantly affected by their attentional allocation, no study empirically investigated the spatial attentional distribution for a successful search strategy. To address this gap, this study monitored 30 workers’ visual search patterns within immersive 360° construction scenarios using eye-tracking technology. Incorporating a computer vision technique, a new spatial attention metric regarding effective search strategy was developed based on workers’ visual search data. The results indicated that workers tended to distribute their attention to the narrow area limited to their field of view, and often, around 80% of 360° surroundings remained unattended, including behind and overhead areas. These findings highlighted the importance of designing a proper training program to improve workers’ search efficiency and hazard identification performance.