Pupil size as an indicator of visual-motor workload and expertise in microsurgical training tasks
Roman Bednarik, Piotr Bartczak, Hana Vrzáková, Jani Koskinen, Antti-Pekka Elomaa, Antti Huotarinen, David Gil de Gómez Pérez, Mikael von und zu Fraunberg · Proceedings of the 2018 ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research & Applications · 2018
Pupillary responses have been for long linked to cognitive workload in numerous tasks. In this work, we investigate the role of pupil dilations in the context of microsurgical training, handling of microinstruments and the suturing act in particular. With an eye-tracker embedded on the surgical microscope oculars, eleven medical participants repeated 12 sutures of artificial skin under high magnification. A detailed analysis of pupillary dilations in suture segments revealed that pupillary responses indeed varied not only according to the main suture segments but also in relation to participants' expertise.