A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
The Impact of Engineering Information Formats on Workers’ Cognitive Load in Working Memory Development
Owing to the increasing dynamics and complexity of construction tasks, workers often need to memorize a big amount of engineering information prior to the operations, such as spatial orientations and operational procedures. The working memory development, as a result, is critical to the performance and safety of many construction tasks. This study investigates how the format of engineering information affects human working memory based on a human-subject virtual reality (VR) experiment (n=90). A VR model was created to simulate a pipe maintenance task. First, participants were asked to review the task procedures in one of the following formats, including 2D isometric drawings, 3D model, and VR model. After the review session, participants were asked to perform the pipe maintenance task in the virtual environment based on their working memory. The operation accuracy and time were used as the key performance indicators of the working memory development. The experiment results indicate that the 3D and VR groups outperformed the 2D group in both operation accuracy and time, suggesting that a more immersive instruction leads to a better working memory. A further examination finds that the 2D group presented a significantly higher level of intrinsic cognitive load and extraneous cognitive load in the working memory development compared to the 3D and VR groups, indicating that different engineering information formats can cause different levels of cognitive load in working memory development, and ultimately affect the final performance. The findings are expected to inspire the design of intelligent information systems that adapt to the cognitive load of construction workers for improved working memory development.
The Impact of Engineering Information Formats on Workers’ Cognitive Load in Working Memory Development
Owing to the increasing dynamics and complexity of construction tasks, workers often need to memorize a big amount of engineering information prior to the operations, such as spatial orientations and operational procedures. The working memory development, as a result, is critical to the performance and safety of many construction tasks. This study investigates how the format of engineering information affects human working memory based on a human-subject virtual reality (VR) experiment (n=90). A VR model was created to simulate a pipe maintenance task. First, participants were asked to review the task procedures in one of the following formats, including 2D isometric drawings, 3D model, and VR model. After the review session, participants were asked to perform the pipe maintenance task in the virtual environment based on their working memory. The operation accuracy and time were used as the key performance indicators of the working memory development. The experiment results indicate that the 3D and VR groups outperformed the 2D group in both operation accuracy and time, suggesting that a more immersive instruction leads to a better working memory. A further examination finds that the 2D group presented a significantly higher level of intrinsic cognitive load and extraneous cognitive load in the working memory development compared to the 3D and VR groups, indicating that different engineering information formats can cause different levels of cognitive load in working memory development, and ultimately affect the final performance. The findings are expected to inspire the design of intelligent information systems that adapt to the cognitive load of construction workers for improved working memory development.
The Impact of Engineering Information Formats on Workers’ Cognitive Load in Working Memory Development
Shi, Yangming (author) / Du, Jing (author) / Zhu, Qi (author) / Liu, Xin (author)
Construction Research Congress 2020 ; 2020 ; Tempe, Arizona
2020-11-09
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
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