Expert surgeon's quiet eye and slowing down: expertise differences in performance and quiet eye duration during identification and dissection of the recurrent laryngeal nerve.

Background: Long quiet eye (QE) duration is central to expertise in sports, while cognitive "slowing down" has been identified as a perceptual skill possessed by skilled surgeons. Eye-tracking evidence is lacking about the relationship of QE duration to slowing down in surgeons. The aim of this study was to examine QE duration, hand movement time (MT), fixation location, and fixation duration in highly experienced (HE) and less experienced (LE) surgeons.