ITR: 3-D Visualizations for Medical Education

交互式计算机可视化的教育潜力令人兴奋。 然而，尽管如此乐观，我们对学习者如何与3D计算机可视化互动知之甚少。医学教育领域的初步研究表明，三维交互模型并不能增强所有学习者的认知能力，反而可能对空间能力低的个体不利。本项目将研究个体空间能力和可视化设计因素对学生空间理解的影响，并利用这些结果来提高三维可视化在医学教育中的有效性。该项目的第一个目标涉及空间能力，已被证明是重要的发展三维人体解剖学的心理模型。我们将探讨空间能力和解剖学学习之间的相关性，并研究如何通过使用交互式计算机可视化和领域知识来调节这种相关性。第二个目标是测试计算机可视化的不同方面（立体与单视场显示，主动与被动控制和触觉与传统界面）学习解剖学的有效性。第三个目标是通过开发和测试使用被证明最有效的模拟类型的培训计划，将结果应用于医学教育。这些研究将使用相关性和实验方法相结合，探索个体差异和解剖学学习之间的关系，以及计算机可视化不同方面的有效性。基础研究最初将与天真的本科生进行，后来推广到医学生。

There is much excitement about the educational potential of interactive computer visualizations. Despite such optimism, however, we know relatively little about how learners interact with 3-D computer visualizations. Initial studies in medical education suggest that rather than augmenting cognition for all learners, 3-D interactive models may actually be disadvantageous to individuals with low spatial abilities.This project will examine the effects of individual spatial abilities and visualization design factors on students' spatial comprehension, and use those results to improve the effectiveness of 3-D visualizations in medical education. The first objective of the project relates to the spatial abilities that have been shown to be important for developing 3-D mental models of human anatomy. We will explore the correlation between spatial ability and anatomy learning, and examine how this correlation is modulated by use of interactive computer visualizations and by domain knowledge. The second objective is to test the effectiveness of different aspects of computer visualizations (stereoscopic vs. monoscopic displays, active vs. passive control and haptic vs traditional interfaces) for learning anatomy. The third objective is to apply the resulting findings to medical education by developing and testing training programs that use the types of simulations that are shown to be most effective. The studies will use a combination of correlational and experimental methods to explore the relationships between individual differences and anatomy learning, and the effectiveness of different aspects of computer visualizations. Basic studies will initially be conducted with naive undergraduate students and later generalized to medical students.