Abstract
We examined performance on a maze-drawing task under conditions designed to simulate hand-assisted laparoscopy (a form of minimally invasive surgery in which the surgeon's non-dominant hand is inserted into the patient's abdominal cavity through an enlarged incision). The task was completed without direct vision, with participants relying solely on the image from a laparoscopic camera to guide their movements. On half the trials, participants held their non-dominant hand in view of the camera. We varied camera angle (offset in azimuth by 0°, 90°, 180°, or 270°), and measured spatial visualization ability. Both camera angle and spatial ability affected overall performance, and these two factors interacted. At 90°, having the hand in view significantly improved performance for all participants, but at 270° it impaired low spatial participants. At 0°, 90°, and 180°, the performance of high and low spatial participants differed significantly only when the hand was in view. Correlations supported the interpretation that hand-in-view accentuated, rather than attenuated, the relationship between spatial ability and performance. The findings have potential implications for surgeons using hand-assisted laparoscopic techniques in minimally invasive procedures.
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