Observing Human Behaviour to Identify Risk in Task Performance
Ronald W. Poppe, Mark ter Maat · Utrecht University Repository (Utrecht University) · 2014
Small mistakes in task performance can have large consequences. Administering a wrong dosage of a medicine, ignoring a system warning or failing to check whether certain values are set can have severe negative effects for patient and process safety. The repetitive nature of such tasks and the often high cognitive load of the worker can easily lead to decreased attention, with inaccurate or incorrect task performance as a result. These effects are even stronger when the normal workflow is interrupted, for example when the worker receives a phone call or when other unexpected events occur. These deviations from a typical task performance can be indicative of risky task performance. By observing the behaviour of a worker, we aim at identifying these moments in time and to alert the worker. We specifically focus on training scenarios in which we can provide understandable feedback to the worker, so the risky behaviour can be avoided in the future. In this paper, we present the Patria system, which observes gestures, head movement, facial expressions, eye gaze and key strokes from subjects operating a simple medical device.