Technostress causes cognitive overload in high-stress people: Eye tracking analysis in a virtual kiosk test

Se Young Kim; Hahyeon Park; Hongbum Kim; Joon Kim; Kyoungwon Seo

doi:10.1016/j.ipm.2022.103093

Technostress causes cognitive overload in high-stress people: Eye tracking analysis in a virtual kiosk test

Inf Process Manag. 2022 Nov;59(6):103093. doi: 10.1016/j.ipm.2022.103093. Epub 2022 Sep 11.

Authors

Se Young Kim¹, Hahyeon Park¹, Hongbum Kim², Joon Kim³, Kyoungwon Seo¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Applied Artificial Intelligence, Seoul National University of Science and Technology, 232 Gongneung-ro, Gongneung-dong, Nowon-gu, Seoul 01811, Republic of Korea.
² College of Business, Gachon University, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea.
³ Korea Institute of Industrial Technology, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea.

Abstract

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of non-face-to-face information and communication technology (ICT) such as kiosks has increased. While kiosks are useful overall, those who do not adapt well to these technologies experience technostress. The two most serious technostressors are inclusion and overload issues, which indicate a sense of inferiority due to a perceived inability to use ICT well and a sense of being overwhelmed by too much information, respectively. This study investigated the different effects of hybrid technostress-induced by both inclusion and overload issues-on the cognitive load among low-stress and high-stress people when using kiosks to complete daily life tasks. We developed a 'virtual kiosk test' to evaluate participants' cognitive load with eye tracking features and performance features when ordering burgers, sides, and drinks using the kiosk. Twelve low-stress participants and 13 high-stress participants performed the virtual kiosk test. As a result, regarding eye tracking features, high-stress participants generated a larger number of blinks, a longer scanpath length, a more distracted heatmap, and a more complex gaze plot than low-stress participants. Regarding performance features, high-stress participants took significantly longer to order and made more errors than low-stress participants. A support-vector machine (SVM) using both eye tracking features (i.e., number of blinks, scanpath length) and a performance feature (i.e., time to completion) best differentiated between low-stress and high-stress participants (89% accuracy, 100% sensitivity, 83.3% specificity, 75% precision, 85.7% F1 score). Overall, under technostress, high-stress participants experienced cognitive overload and consequently decreased performance; whereas, low-stress participants felt moderate arousal and improved performance. These varying effects of technostress can be interpreted through the Yerkes-Dodson law. Based on our findings, we proposed an adaptive interface, multimodal interaction, and virtual reality training as three implications for technostress relief in non-face-to-face ICT.

Keywords: Cognitive load; Eye tracking; Kiosk; Technostress; Virtual reality.