A Spatial Secondary Task for Measuring Laparoscopic Mental Workload

The present study examined whether a spatial secondary task could distinguish among different levels of laparoscopic skill. Novices and surgeons with different levels of laparoscopic experience were asked to perform a peg transfer task on a laparoscopic simulator along with the secondary task. The results showed that novices performed more poorly than the surgeons on both the primary peg task and the secondary task. This pattern of results suggests that the primary task was more difficult for the novices leaving fewer attentional resources for the secondary task. Moreover, the results show that the spatial secondary task used in this study is sensitive to differences in mental resources required by individuals with different levels of laparoscopic surgical skill.

[1]  L. S. Feldman,et al.  Experienced surgeons can do more than one thing at a time: effect of distraction on performance of a simple laparoscopic and cognitive task by experienced and novice surgeons , 2007, Surgical Endoscopy.

[2]  Will Seidelman,et al.  Interval Production as a Secondary Task Workload Measure: Consideration of Primary Task Demands for Interval Selection , 2012 .

[3]  R. M. Satava,et al.  PicSOr: An objective test of perceptual skill that predicts laparoscopic technical skill in three initial studies of laparoscopopic performance , 2003, Surgical Endoscopy And Other Interventional Techniques.

[4]  F. Thomas Eggemeier,et al.  Workload assessment methodology. , 1986 .

[5]  A. Darzi,et al.  Laparoscopic virtual reality and box trainers: is one superior to the other? , 2004, Surgical Endoscopy And Other Interventional Techniques.

[6]  S. Dekker,et al.  LAPAROSCOPIC BILE DUCT INJURY: UNDERSTANDING THE PSYCHOLOGY AND HEURISTICS OF THE ERROR , 2008, ANZ journal of surgery.

[7]  James R Korndorffer,et al.  Redefining simulator proficiency using automaticity theory. , 2007, American journal of surgery.

[8]  W. Brent Seales,et al.  Time Estimation as a Measure of Mental Workload during the Training of Laparoscopic Skills , 2006 .

[9]  K. Moorthy,et al.  The benfits of stereoscopic vision in robotic-assisted performance on bench models , 2004, Surgical Endoscopy And Other Interventional Techniques.

[10]  Mark W. Scerbo,et al.  Fundamentals of Surgical Simulation: Principles and Practices , 2012 .

[11]  B Cagir,et al.  The learning curve for laparoscopic cholecystectomy. , 1994, Journal of laparoendoscopic surgery.

[12]  Christopher D. Wickens,et al.  Multiple resources and performance prediction , 2002 .