Leveraging eye-tracking for cognitive-behavioral analysis of contract risk identification in the construction industry

Purpose Contract risks identification (CRI) is a pivotal component in project and contract management. Understanding the visual patterns for contract clause recognition would help the development of CRI techniques. However, the current methods lack consideration of spatiality and temporality. This study aims to enhance CRI performance in critical contractual areas. Design/methodology/approach This study applies eye-tracking technology to dissect how participants’ cognitive behaviors when processing contract information. Crisp-set qualitative comparative analysis (csQCA) is employed to identify and analyze risk perception patterns across three critical clauses: quality control, liability for breach of contract and price adjustment. Findings The findings underscore the significance of specific visual sequences in CRI, indicating that skipping should be avoided while reading quality control clauses backward, liability for breach of contract clauses should avoid attention being drawn away from the relationship between the act and the subject and price adjustment clauses should focus on the relationship between multiple subjects. Originality/value The research extends the knowledge of visual pattern recognition through clarifying how contract components interact to influence risk perception and cognitive processes, which also contributes to the understanding of how human cognitive processing and visual attention interact during complex document analysis.