Divided Attention in Human-Robot Teaming: Assessing Performance in Large-Scale Interactive Virtual Environments

This paper explores division of attention for people in human-robot teaming within immersive virtual environments (IVEs), focusing on search tasks where a supervisor oversees multiple robots distributed across various locations. We examine how spatial separation of robot teams affects supervisors’ attention, performance, workload, and situational awareness. We investigate the cognitive impact of managing geographically divided teams. The study also considers how head movement and locomotion, activities involving crucial spatial cues, influence visual attention and spatial memory in complex tasks. Two experiments are conducted to analyze these effects in this applied setting, which could inform command and control structures for robot teams. The results of this research inform spatial attention for large-scale IVEs and could have broader implications for designing effective human-robot collaborations in various fields such as defense, search and rescue, and manufacturing.