In video war games, are military personnel’s fixation patterns different compared with those of civilians?

For combat personnel in urban operations, situational awareness is critical and of major importance for a safe and efficient performance. One way to train situational awareness is to adopt video games. Twenty military and 20 civilian subjects played the game “Close Combat: First to Fight” on two dif...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Söderberg, Håkan, Khalid, Junaid, Rayees, Mohammed, Dahlman, Joakim, Falkmer, Torbjorn
Format: Journal Article
Published: Sage Publications, Inc. 2012
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dms.sagepub.com/
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/47520
_version_ 1848757855048433664
author Söderberg, Håkan
Khalid, Junaid
Rayees, Mohammed
Dahlman, Joakim
Falkmer, Torbjorn
author_facet Söderberg, Håkan
Khalid, Junaid
Rayees, Mohammed
Dahlman, Joakim
Falkmer, Torbjorn
author_sort Söderberg, Håkan
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description For combat personnel in urban operations, situational awareness is critical and of major importance for a safe and efficient performance. One way to train situational awareness is to adopt video games. Twenty military and 20 civilian subjects played the game “Close Combat: First to Fight” on two different platforms, Xbox and PC, wearing an eye tracker. The purpose was to investigate if the visual search strategies used in a game correspond to live training, and how military-trained personnel search for visual information in a game environment. A total of 27,081 fixations were generated through a centroid mode algorithm and analyzed frame-by-frame, 48% of them from military personnel. Military personnel’s visual search strategies were different from those of civilians. Fixation durations were, however, equally short, that is, about 170 ms, for both groups. Surprisingly, the military-trained personnel’s fixation patterns were less orientated towards tactical objects and areas of interest than the civilians’; the underlying mechanisms remaining unclear. Military training was apparently not advantageous with respect to playing “Close Combat: First to Fight”. Further research within the area of gaming, military training and visual search strategies is warranted.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T09:34:43Z
format Journal Article
id curtin-20.500.11937-47520
institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T09:34:43Z
publishDate 2012
publisher Sage Publications, Inc.
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling curtin-20.500.11937-475202017-09-13T16:01:26Z In video war games, are military personnel’s fixation patterns different compared with those of civilians? Söderberg, Håkan Khalid, Junaid Rayees, Mohammed Dahlman, Joakim Falkmer, Torbjorn expert video war game military training eye tracking First person shooter visual search patterns For combat personnel in urban operations, situational awareness is critical and of major importance for a safe and efficient performance. One way to train situational awareness is to adopt video games. Twenty military and 20 civilian subjects played the game “Close Combat: First to Fight” on two different platforms, Xbox and PC, wearing an eye tracker. The purpose was to investigate if the visual search strategies used in a game correspond to live training, and how military-trained personnel search for visual information in a game environment. A total of 27,081 fixations were generated through a centroid mode algorithm and analyzed frame-by-frame, 48% of them from military personnel. Military personnel’s visual search strategies were different from those of civilians. Fixation durations were, however, equally short, that is, about 170 ms, for both groups. Surprisingly, the military-trained personnel’s fixation patterns were less orientated towards tactical objects and areas of interest than the civilians’; the underlying mechanisms remaining unclear. Military training was apparently not advantageous with respect to playing “Close Combat: First to Fight”. Further research within the area of gaming, military training and visual search strategies is warranted. 2012 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/47520 10.1177/1548512912467867 http://dms.sagepub.com/ Sage Publications, Inc. restricted
spellingShingle expert
video war game
military training
eye tracking
First person shooter
visual search patterns
Söderberg, Håkan
Khalid, Junaid
Rayees, Mohammed
Dahlman, Joakim
Falkmer, Torbjorn
In video war games, are military personnel’s fixation patterns different compared with those of civilians?
title In video war games, are military personnel’s fixation patterns different compared with those of civilians?
title_full In video war games, are military personnel’s fixation patterns different compared with those of civilians?
title_fullStr In video war games, are military personnel’s fixation patterns different compared with those of civilians?
title_full_unstemmed In video war games, are military personnel’s fixation patterns different compared with those of civilians?
title_short In video war games, are military personnel’s fixation patterns different compared with those of civilians?
title_sort in video war games, are military personnel’s fixation patterns different compared with those of civilians?
topic expert
video war game
military training
eye tracking
First person shooter
visual search patterns
url http://dms.sagepub.com/
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/47520