title: Cognitive simulators for medical education and training.
abstract: Simulators for honing procedural skills (such as surgical skills and central venous catheter placement) have proven to be valuable tools for medical educators and students. While such simulations represent an effective paradigm in surgical education, there is an opportunity to add a layer of cognitive exercises to these basic simulations that can facilitate robust skill learning in residents. This paper describes a controlled methodology, inspired by neuropsychological assessment tasks and embodied cognition, to develop cognitive simulators for laparoscopic surgery. These simulators provide psychomotor skill training and offer the additional challenge of accomplishing cognitive tasks in realistic environments. A generic framework for design, development and evaluation of such simulators is described. The presented framework is generalizable and can be applied to different task domains. It is independent of the types of sensors, simulation environment and feedback mechanisms that the simulators use. A proof of concept of the framework is provided through developing a simulator that includes cognitive variations to a basic psychomotor task. The results of two pilot studies are presented that show the validity of the methodology in providing an effective evaluation and learning environments for surgeons.
authors.affiliation: Human Machine Symbiosis Laboratory, Center for Cognition and Decision Making, Department of Biomedical Informatics, School of Computing and Informatics, Arizona State University, Tempe, 45 N 5th Street #235, Phoenix, AZ 85004, USA. kanav@asu.edu
authors.forename: Kanav
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kahol
authors.forename: Mithra
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vankipuram
authors.forename: Marshall L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Smith
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002983:Clinical Competence; D019336:Cognitive Science / Q000295:instrumentation*; D003657:Decision Making; D004501:Education, Medical / Q000379:methods*; D004521:Educational Measurement; D005246:Feedback; D005260:Female; D013502:General Surgery / Q000193:education*; D006801:Humans; D010535:Laparoscopy; D008297:Male; D009048:Motor Skills / Q000502:physiology*; D016544:Patient Simulation; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D014584:User-Computer Interface