Medication errors can occur when drug labeling fails to communicate critical information necessary for safe and effective use. Tracking the eye's visual scanpath across drug labels affords investigation into attentive behavior to identify attention assets and deficits. Eye-tracking and change detection methodologies were combined in this study to examine attentive behavior in the context of drug labeling during visual search. Twenty-six participants viewed images on a computer screen of six mock drug labels that were designed based on 6 commercially available pharmaceutical products. Labels were sectioned into a 3 x 3 grid (9 square zones, top-left, bottom- ight, center, etc.) during analysis. Post hoc pairwise comparisons indicated the center zone(zone 5, center of label) garnered significantly more visual hits (P<0.0001) and time in zone (P<0.0001) than any other zone. The center zone was also the fastest zone fixated on by participants (P<0.0001). Scanpath data showed agreement and also indicated frequent fixation on the center zone throughout the visual search task. The bottom-right zone (zone 9, bottom-right corner of label) was consistently grouped among the lowest in terms of attention. Information design implications are discussed. -- Abstract.
Read
