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

Abstract

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of non-face-to-face information and communi-cation 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 tech-nostressors 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 per-formance 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.