Investigating Cognitive Load for Tasks with Mathematics and Chemistry Context through Eye Tracking

Abstract

Changes in mathematical representation are an essential part of many STEM fields, especially chemistry. In order to better understand these transitions between different representations, we investigated possible eye-tracking indicators of cognitive load during a task that had two experimental conditions: one was purely mathematical, the other one was similar, but had a chemical context. We used pupil diameter, fixation duration, and pupil fluctuations as measured through the IPA as indicators of cognitive load. Our preliminary results indicate that there may not be a significant difference in cognitive load between the two conditions, which in turn suggests that a chemical context does not impose additional cognitive load on participants. The present study may serve as a starting point to investigate this issue further and shed light on the potential influence of a chemical context on cognitive load.