Influence of visual clutter on the effect of navigated safety inspection: a case study on elevator installation

Abstract

Introduction. Navigated safety inspection based on task-specific checklists can increase the hazard detection rate, theoretically with interference from scene complexity. Visual clutter, a proxy of scene complexity, can theoretically impair visual search performance, but its impact on the effect of safety inspection performance remains to be explored for the optimization of navigated inspection. This research aims to explore whether the relationship between working memory and hazard detection rate is moderated by visual clutter. Methods. Based on a perceptive model of hazard detection, we: (a) developed a mathematical influence model for construction hazard detection; (b) designed an experiment to observe the performance of hazard detection rate with adjusted working memory under different levels of visual clutter, while using an eye-tracking device to observe participants’ visual search processes; (c) utilized logistic regression to analyze the developed model under various visual clutter. Conclusion. The effect of a strengthened working memory on the detection rate through increased search efficiency is more apparent in high visual clutter. This study confirms the role of visual clutter in construction-navigated inspections, thus serving as a foundation for the optimization of inspection planning.

Keywords:

• visual clutter
• hazard detection
• working memory
• inspection
• construction safety

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Natural Science Foundation of China and the United Technologies Corporation for their support of this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Pin-Chao Liao http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6927-9204

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by Natural Science Foundation of China [No. 51578317]; United Technologies Corporation [No. 20153000259].