Haptic Guidance and Haptic Error Amplification in a Virtual Surgical Robotic Training Environment

Teleoperated robotic systems have introduced more intuitive control for minimally invasive surgery, but the optimal method for training remains unknown. Recent motor learning studies have demonstrated that exaggeration of errors helps trainees learn to perform tasks with greater speed and accuracy. We hypothesized that training in a force field that pushes the user away from a desired path would improve their performance on a virtual reality ring-on-wire task. Thirty-eight surgical novices trained under a no-force, guidance, or error-amplifying force field over five days. Completion time, translational and rotational path error, and combined error-time were evaluated under no force field on the final day. The groups significantly differed in combined error-time, with the guidance group performing the worst. Error-amplifying field participants did not plateau in their performance during training, suggesting that learning was still ongoing. Guidance field participants had the worst performance on the final day, confirming the guidance hypothesis. Observed trends also suggested that participants who had high initial path error benefited more from guidance. Error-amplifying and error-reducing haptic training for robot-assisted telesurgery benefits trainees of different abilities differently, with our results indicating that participants with high initial combined error-time benefited more from guidance and error-amplifying force field training.