Advancing our understanding and assessment of cognitive effort in the cognitive fit theory and data visualization context: Eye tracking-based approach

In Cognitive Fit Theory (CFT) based research, there is a consensus about cognitive effort as the underlying mechanism impacting performance. Although critical to the theory, cognitive effort and its direct empirical assessment remain a challenge. In this repeated measures experimental study, we introduce a research model and develop hypotheses based on the fundamental relationships underlying CFT while integrating eye tracking as an approach for assessing cognitive effort. Our study finds that eye tracking technology, specifically fixation-based metrics, can be used in the understanding of cognitive processes initiated by our data representation choices. Specifically, we find that in all tasks except the complex-symbolic task, users experience meaningful change in the physiological assessment of cognitive effort based on the condition of cognitive fit. We contrast our findings to existing research and find that physiological indicators of cognitive effort can provide critical insights often missed in traditional CFT research.