Attention to Changes on a Head-Worn Display: Two Preclinical Studies with Healthcare Scenarios

Objective In two experiments, we examined how quickly different visual alerts on a head-worn display (HWD) would capture participants' attention to a matrix of patient vital sign values, while multitasking. Background An HWD could help clinicians monitor multiple patients, regardless of where the clinician is located. We sought effective ways for HWDs to alert multitasking wearers to important events. Methods In two preclinical experiments, university student participants performed a visuomotor tracking task while simultaneously monitoring simulated patient vital signs on an HWD to detect abnormal values. Methods to attract attention to abnormal values included highlighting abnormal vital signs and imposing a white flash over the entire display. Results Experiment 1 found that participants detected abnormal values faster with high contrast than low contrast greyscale highlights, even while performing difficult tracking. In Experiment 2, a white flash of the entire screen quickly and reliably captured attention to vital signs, but less so on an HWD than on a conventional screen. Conclusion Visual alerts on HWDs can direct users' attention to patient transition events (PTEs) even under high visual-perceptual load, but not as quickly as visual alerts on fixed displays. Aspects of the results have since been tested in a healthcare context. Application Potential applications include informing the design of HWD interfaces for monitoring multiple processes and informing future research on capturing attention to HWDs.