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

研究机器人手术中是否存在将视觉反馈转化为触觉信息的技巧，找出获得这种技巧的最佳模态反馈，研究与这种技巧相结合的视觉特征来估计物体的刚度，外科医生通过使用视觉线索来判断组织的变形来学习适应有限的触觉反馈。我们研究的目的是识别专家外科医生在微创和机器人手术中有意识或无意识地使用的视觉线索，以安全地导航和操纵软组织。在手术中，解释视觉线索的能力很重要，其中不良结果主要归因于感知错误，而不是运动技能差。在机器人辅助手术（RIS）中尤其如此，其中有限的触觉反馈对估计组织的3D形状和行为的能力施加了限制。然而，我们对实习外科医生如何学习在视觉领域做出判断知之甚少。通过对视觉线索的更窄定义，我们希望能够让机器人手术的学生做出更好的决策，从而减少对组织的损伤，并改善整体的学习效果。

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.