Variables influencing change blindness in construction safety

Abstract

Change blindness, a failure to detect changes in visual scenes, can impact workers’ ability to detect hazards and compromise safety on the jobsite. Examining the relationship between this phenomenon and individual characteristics (e.g., personality variables, safety training) may conceivably support safety managers in predicting susceptibility to change blindness. However, little is known regarding variables influencing change blindness in construction safety. To address this knowledge gap, this study examined the association between individual factors such as age, work experience, sex, formal safety training, personality, mindfulness, and injury exposure with change blindness in construction safety settings. To this end, a change detection experiment was conducted to measure participants’ response time and accuracy rate. Hierarchical agglomerative clustering was used to group the continuous dependent variables into analytical categories. Logistic regression was then used to analyze the association of individual factors with both response time and accuracy rate. The results revealed that age and the personality traits of agreeableness (+) and conscientiousness (−) were associated with response time, while mindfulness (+) and injury exposure (+) were associated with the accuracy rate. The findings of this study advance our understanding of variables that impact change blindness. The association of individual factors with change detection performance in construction provides a foundation for subsequent research to understand hazard identification in dynamic environments better. Regarding practice, these individual factors can be used as precursors to predict the susceptibility of workers to change blindness in construction; foreseeably, industry professionals can also utilize the predictive power of these variables to plan preventive actions on the jobsite.