Gaze-contingent perceptually enabled interactions in the operating theatre.

PURPOSE: Improved surgical outcome and patient safety in the operating theatre are constant challenges. We hypothesise that a framework that collects and utilises information -especially perceptually enabled ones-from multiple sources, could help to meet the above goals. This paper presents some core functionalities of a wider low-cost framework under development that allows perceptually enabled interaction within the surgical environment. METHODS: The synergy of wearable eye-tracking and advanced computer vision methodologies, such as SLAM, is exploited. As a demonstration of one of the framework's possible functionalities, an articulated collaborative robotic arm and laser pointer is integrated and the set-up is used to project the surgeon's fixation point in 3D space. RESULTS: The implementation is evaluated over 60 fixations on predefined targets, with distances between the subject and the targets of 92-212 cm and between the robot and the targets of 42-193 cm. The median overall system error is currently 3.98 cm. Its real-time potential is also highlighted. CONCLUSIONS: The work presented here represents an introduction and preliminary experimental validation of core functionalities of a larger framework under development. The proposed framework is geared towards a safer and more efficient surgical theatre

Neurobehavioural signatures in race car driving

ABSTRACT Recent technological developments in mobile brain and body imaging are enabling new frontiers of real-world neuroscience. Simultaneous recordings of body movement and brain activity from highly skillful individuals as they demonstrate their exceptional skills in real-world settings, can shed new light on neurobehavioural structure of human expertise. Driving is a real-world skill which many of us acquire on different levels of expertise. Here we ran a case-study on a subject with the highest level of driving expertise - a Formula E Champion. We studied the expert driver’s neural and motor patterns while he drove a sports car in the “Top Gear” race track under extreme conditions (high speed, low visibility, low temperature, wet track). His brain activity, eye movements and hand/foot movements were recorded. Brain activity in the delta, alpha, and beta frequency bands showed causal relation to hand movements. We demonstrate, here in summary, that even in extreme situations (race track driving) a method for conducting human ethomic (Ethology + Omics) data that encompasses information on the sensory inputs and motor outputs outputs of the brain as well as brain state to characterise complex human skills

Searching for meaning in sound: Learning and interpreting alarm signals in visual environments

Given the ease with which the diverse array of environmental sounds can be understood, the difficulties encountered in using auditory alarm signals on medical devices are surprising. In two experiments, with non-clinical participants, alarm sets which relied on similarities to environmental sounds (concrete alarms, such as a heartbeat sound to indicate ‘check cardiovascular function’) were compared to alarms using abstract tones to represent functions on medical devices. The extent to which alarms were acoustically diverse was also examined: alarm sets were either acoustically different or acoustically similar within each set. In Experiment 1 concrete alarm sets, which were also acoustically different, were learned more quickly than abstract alarms which were acoustically similar. Importantly, the abstract similar alarms were devised using guidelines from the current global medical device standard (IEC 60601-1-8, 2012). Experiment 2 replicated these findings. In addition, eye tracking data showed that participants were most likely to fixate first on the correct medical devices in an operating theatre scene when presented with concrete acoustically different alarms using real world sounds. A new set of alarms which are related to environmental sounds and differ acoustically have therefore been proposed as a replacement for the current medical device standard