Physiological Metrics of Surgical Difficulty and Multi-Task Requirement during Robotic Surgery Skills.

Previous studies in robotic-assisted surgery (RAS) have studied cognitive workload by modulating surgical task difficulty, and many of these studies have relied on self-reported workload measurements. However, contributors to and their effects on cognitive workload are complex and may not be sufficiently summarized by changes in task difficulty alone. This study aims to understand how multi-task requirement contributes to the prediction of cognitive load in RAS under different task difficulties.

An Adaptive Human-Robotic Interaction Architecture for Augmenting Surgery Performance Using Real-Time Workload Sensing-Demonstration of a Semi-autonomous Suction Tool.

Objective: This study developed and evaluated a mental workload-based adaptive automation (MWL-AA) that monitors surgeon cognitive load and assist during cognitively demanding tasks and assists surgeons in robotic-assisted surgery (RAS).

Background: The introduction of RAS makes operators overwhelmed. The need for precise, continuous assessment of human mental workload (MWL) states is important to identify when the interventions should be delivered to moderate operators' MWL.