# Boosting Safety Protocol Compliance with Eye-Tracking in Chemical Plants
## 4 Discussion  
This study investigated the integration of eye-tracking technology into VR-based safety training for high-risk industrial environments, with a specific focus on chemical production. The findings demonstrate that real-time gaze feedback led to a numerical improvement in reaction time, although this effect did not reach statistical significance. However, operational accuracy, error reduction, and corrective response time showed significant gains, particularly among novice operators. The ability to guide attention through gaze-tracking enabled inexperienced participants to reduce their performance gap with experienced personnel, reinforcing the role of adaptive feedback in training environments. Although improvements in reaction time were observed, they did not reach statistical significance. Nonetheless, this trend suggests potential for enhancing trainee responsiveness in time-sensitive emergency scenarios such as chemical leaks or equipment malfunctions, where every second matters in preventing escalation. Enhanced operational accuracy suggests improved procedural compliance, which is critical in environments \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Training** & **Experienced** & **Inexperienced** & **n** & **\(p\)-Value** & **Cohen’s d** \\
**Condition** & **Operators (s)** & **Operators (s)** & **n** & **\(p\)-Value** & **Cohen’s d** \\ \hline VR Only & 0.60 \(\pm\) 0.18 & 0.84 \(\pm\) 0.19 & 177 & & \\ VR + Eye-Tracking & 0.59 \(\pm\) 0.19 & 0.81 \(\pm\) 0.19 & 177 & 0.0052 & 0.299 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 7: Analysis results of corrective response time between groups. Figure 11: Corrective response time between groups. where slight deviations from protocol can result in severe outcomes such as toxic exposure or fire hazards. Increased attention focus directly supports sustained engagement with high-risk indicators, which is vital for proactive hazard detection. The 30% reduction in error rate further demonstrates that gaze-guided feedback reduces the likelihood of critical mistakes, promoting safer and more reliable task execution in real-world operations. These outcomes confirm the practical relevance of gaze-based adaptive training in improving overall industrial readiness and safety culture [33]. The present findings are consistent with previous research, demonstrating improved hazard recognition in VR-based training environments for high-risk industries such as construction and offshore operations [12; 13]. While prior studies have successfully applied eye-tracking to evaluate attention patterns in post-simulation analyses, they predominantly focus on retrospective performance assessment. In contrast, the current study addresses the unique demands of the chemical industry--an environment defined by complex procedural interdependencies and high-consequence decision-making. More notably, this work introduces real-time gaze-based corrective feedback, enabling the system to dynamically guide the trainee's visual attention during task execution. This approach represents a significant advancement in adaptive training methodologies by transforming eye-tracking from a passive assessment tool into an active performance-enhancement mechanism. Results indicate that eye-tracking feedback is instrumental in improving reaction time during emergency scenarios. Participants in the VR + eye-tracking group exhibited a 25% reduction in reaction time compared to the VR-only group; however, this difference was not statistically significant, and thus suggests a potential, rather than confirmed, benefit of gaze-directed feedback in hazard recognition. This improvement was observed across all experience levels, with novice operators benefiting the most, aligning with previous studies that highlight how real-time feedback reduces cognitive load and improves response efficiency in high-risk settings [34].