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Cognitive load in tele-robotic surgery: a comparison of eye tracker designs

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Abstract

Purpose

Eye gaze tracking and pupillometry are evolving areas within the field of tele-robotic surgery, particularly in the context of estimating cognitive load (CL). However, this is a recent field, and current solutions for gaze and pupil tracking in robotic surgery require assessment. Considering the necessity of stable pupillometry signals for reliable cognitive load estimation, we compare the accuracy of three eye trackers, including head and console-mounted designs.

Methods

We conducted a user study with the da Vinci Research Kit (dVRK), to compare the three designs. We collected eye tracking and dVRK video data while participants observed nine markers distributed over the dVRK screen. We compute and analyze pupil detection stability and gaze prediction accuracy for the three designs.

Results

Head-worn devices present better stability and accuracy of gaze prediction and pupil detection compared to console-mounted systems. Tracking stability along the field of view varies between trackers, with gaze predictions detected at invalid zones of the image with high confidence.

Conclusion

While head-worn solutions show benefits in confidence and stability, our results demonstrate the need to improve eye tacker performance regarding pupil detection, stability, and gaze accuracy in tele-robotic scenarios.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by an Intuitive Surgical Technology Advancement Grant.

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Author notes

  1. Roger D. Soberanis-Mukul and Paola Ruiz Puentes are joint first authors.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Roger D. Soberanis-Mukul, Paola Ruiz Puentes, Iris Gupta, Joyraj Bhowmick & Mathias Unberath

  2. Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA

    Ayberk Acar, Yizhou Li & Jie Ying Wu

  3. Department of Urology, Johns Hopkins Medical Institute, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Ahmed Ghazi

Authors
  1. Roger D. Soberanis-Mukul
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  2. Paola Ruiz Puentes
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  3. Ayberk Acar
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  4. Iris Gupta
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  5. Joyraj Bhowmick
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  6. Yizhou Li
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  7. Ahmed Ghazi
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  8. Jie Ying Wu
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  9. Mathias Unberath
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Roger D. Soberanis-Mukul.

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The authors have no Conflict of interest to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.

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Approval was obtained from the ethics committee of Johns Hopkins University under HIRB00014648.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Soberanis-Mukul, R.D., Puentes, P.R., Acar, A. et al. Cognitive load in tele-robotic surgery: a comparison of eye tracker designs. Int J CARS (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11548-024-03150-x

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