Mapping Cognitive Fidelity in Joint Cognitive Systems: Neuroergonomics in Simulation-Based Training

Abstract

Assessing whether simulation-based training environments elicit the cognitive demands of real work remains a persistent challenge in human factors and neuroergonomics. This paper presents a meta-analysis of eye-tracking studies (2005–2025) conducted in live, virtual, and constructive simulation-based training environments across aviation, maritime, medical, military, and industrial domains, examining whether inconsistencies in prior findings are explained by variation in cognitive fidelity, which this paper defines as the degree to which simulations preserve the information-processing structure of operational tasks. Across 26 studies cognitive fidelity strongly moderated gaze–performance relationships. High cognitive fidelity simulations produced moderate-to-large and stable effects (mean r ≈ .48), whereas medium fidelity simulations showed attenuated effects (mean r ≈ .18) and low fidelity simulations yielded weak and heterogeneous effects (mean r ≈ .07), independent of simulator realism or eye-tracker resolution. Risks emerged when eye tracking was applied to cognitively shallow or underspecified tasks, where gaze patterns reflected engagement or design artifacts rather than task-relevant cognition. The findings reposition eye tracking as a neuroergonomic diagnostic of cognitive fidelity, yielding actionable guidance for researchers and designers: cognitive work must be engineered before measurement, and eye tracking should be deployed after core design decisions stabilize to evaluate, compare, and refine cognitively faithful training systems.

Keywords: Neuroergonomics, Cognitive Fidelity, Joint Cognitive Systems, Cognitive Engineering

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1007392