From Visual to Haptic: How do Laparoscopy Experts Estimate Haptics from Visual Cues in Robotic Surgery

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To investigate whether there is a skill of transformation of visual feedback to haptic information in robotic surgery, to find out the best modality feedback to acquire such skill, to investigate the visual features that are used with such skill to estimate object stiffness.Surgeons learn to adapt to limited haptic feedback by using visual cues to make judgements about tissue deformation. The aim of our research is to identify the visual cues that are consciously or unconsciously used by expert surgeons to navigate and manipulate the soft tissue safely during minimal-invasive and robotic surgery.The ability to interpret visual cues is important in surgery, in which poor outcomes are largely attributable to errors of perception rather than poor motor skills. This is especially the case in Robot-assisted surgery (RIS), where the limited haptic feedback imposes a limitation to the ability of estimating the 3D shape and behaviour of the tissue. However, we know little about how trainee surgeons learn to make judgements in the visual domain. With a narrower definition of visual cues we hope to enable better decision making by students of robotic surgery that will result in less damage to the tissue and an improved learning outcome over all.