presented by: Dr Lisa Wise

Prepared by Lisa Wise, Feb 2007

MUVES seminar series

Simulations in aviation and medicine:

Cognitive and motivational factors influencing use in training

presented by:

Dr Lisa WiseCognitive scientist / educational technologist

BASE Study, Defence Science and Technology Organisation

Honorary Research Fellow

MUVES Project, The University of Melbourne



Cross-disciplinary research background

• cognitive neuroscience researcher– neural mechanisms of sensory motor integration

– neuroethology and multimodal spatial coding

– sensory adaptions in different species (predator versus prey)

• psychology teaching – perception, cognition, communication

– motivation and emotion

– skill acquisition

• educational technologist specialising in online learning• project management / web database applications



MUVES

Melbourne University Virtual Environments for Simulation

• The MUVES research program is grounded in a cognitive science approach to the education and training utility of high fidelity virtual reality simulations and other forms of interactive technology. Underpinning this program of research are core questions about how humans process information and how different types of knowledge is represented.

funded by the University of Melbourne Strategic Research Innovation Fund



BASE Study

Balance in the mix of Aircraft and Synthetic Environments for early flight training

• The BASE study reviews the psychological and educational basis on which decisions regarding use of synthetic training devices in early pilot training should be made

contract research for the Defence Science and Technology Organisation



Outline• Simulations: What are they?

– static versus dynamic models, emulations, synthetic environments,

• Simulations: Why use them?– cost reduction, risk mitigation, generating abnormal conditions

• Fidelity and level of abstraction– types of fidelity, types of models, purpose of simulation

• Mental models and cognitive understanding– novice versus expert, procedural vs conceptual, decision-making

• Training continuum– basic vs advanced training, end-point of training, dealing with complexity

• Organisational factors– cost-benefit, contractor / vendor / organisational dynamics



Simulations: What are they

• dynamic models (theoretical / empirical)– verification, validation and accreditation of models

• emulations, simulations, synthetic environments, VRREAL WORLD

PROBLEM SPACE

SOFTWAREMODEL

CONCEPTUALMODEL

datavalidity

Conceptual

validationOperat

ional

valid

ation

Softwareverification

computer programming

experimentation analysis &modelling

from Roger SmithSimulation 2000 series



Issues with computer modellingThe World as a Process: Simulations in the Natural and Social

Sciences (Stephan Hartmann)

– “That is the dilemma of using computers in science: People no longer spend that much time thinking about simple treatments but just complicate the model in order to increase its empirical adequacy.”

– “We need independent evidence for the terms involved: ‘A simulation is no better than the assumptions build into it.’”

– “Every term in the model has to be interpreted thoroughly.”– “There is no understanding of a process without a detailed

understanding of the individual contributions to the dynamic model. Curve fitting and adding more and more ad hoc terms simply doesn’t do the job.”



Issues with computer modelling

The World as a Process: Simulations in the Natural and Social Sciences (Stephan Hartmann)

– “There is still another (psychological) problem with many realistic simulations which fit all data well. They make us forget that as always in science idealizations and approximations were involved in deriving the model.”

– “A serious appraisal of computer simulation has to pay attention to this fact.”



Virtual reality - answers.com“A computer simulation of a real or imaginary system that

enables a user to perform operations on the simulated system and shows the effects in real time”

“In scientific and engineering research, virtual environments are used to visually explore whatever physical world phenomenon is under study. Training personnel for work in dangerous environments or with expensive equipment is best done through simulation. Airplane pilots, for example, train in flight simulators. Virtual reality can enable medical personnel to practice new surgical procedures on simulated individuals. As a form of entertainment, virtual reality is a highly engaging way to experience imaginary worlds and to play games. Virtual reality also provides a way to experiment with prototype designs for new products.”



Training aids



Early Flight Simulators - Link Trainers (1929)



QANTAS 747 Flight Simulator



CSIRO Haptic workbench - VR for surgery• The task: one surgeon leading the other through the concepts involved in a surgical

procedure

• Tools: shared virtual reality model of the anatomy, shared haptic interaction with that model, 3D annotation tools, ancillary shared video of the actual procedure, shared annotatable X-ray display of an actual patient.

• Each surgeon had an immersive haptic workbench fitted with camera, small video display and microphone/speaker for audio communication. The audio was also broadcast to the audience. SimTec, T2004



Laproscopic surgery

• new context for existing surgical skills• actual task requires visualisation via

computer screen



CRM / Scenarios / Missions• David Gaba, an anaesthetist, and his group at Stanford University USA

recognised the similarities between pilots and Anaesthetists and adapted the aviation industry's Crew Resource Management training to the field of anaesthesia and named it Anaesthesia Crisis Resource Management (ACRM).



Simulations: Why use them?

• cost reduction– high cost / low availability of real life situation (aircraft

availability / air space, operating theatres / patients)

• risk mitigation– high risk procedures, emergency situations

• generating abnormal conditions– low probability situations

– what-ifs

– weather / missions / operating conditions



Fidelity and levels of abstraction

• types of fidelity• types of models• purpose of simulation

– some examples

AVIATION MEDICINE

visual flying temporal bone surgery

instrument flying laproscopic surgery

missions surgical theatre



Components of skill acquisition

• Cognitive component– nature of skill-to-be-acquired is captured

• Perceptual learning component– environmental information is explored such that task-relevant

and task-irrelevant cues are identified

• Response learning component– specific skill-related behavioural responses are acquired

• Mapping - sequencing component– appropriate cues and responses are linked together

• Performance component– skilled behaviour is enacted

Undifferentiatedgeneral responsiveness

Gross selective response to stimulus differences

Differentiation of patterns / objects from background

Progressive differentiationof economical features

Detection ofhigher order structure

Naming

Formation of representations- Sensorimotor

- Imaginal- Conceptual

Production

Abstraction ofdistinctive features

Abstraction ofinvariant relationships

(after E.J.Gibson (1969) Principles of perceptual development, p161)

Perceptual learning and total cognitive process:• Recognition• Production• Image, schema, concept mediation by language

Selective factorsIn

Perceptual Learning



Optical illusions

“Optical illusion” sounds pejorative, as if exposing a malfunction of the visual system. Rather, I view these phenomena as bringing out particular good adaptations of our visual system to standard viewing situations. These adaptations are “hard-wired” in our brains, and thus under some artificial manipulations can cause inappropriate interpretations of the visual scene. As Purkinje put it: “Illusions of the senses tell us the truth about perception” (cited by Teuber, 1960).

Michael Bach http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/



Colour afterimage



Rotating snake - luminance effects



Mach bands - contrast effects at boundaries



Necker cube - depth ambiguity



Illusory motion of illusory contours• The illusory square appears to

move from one position to the other.

• Two image frames are used to create the illusion of motion. The motion is induced by swapping quickly between the two frames.

• The squares themselves are also an illusion, as they have no real boundaries, but are mentally constructed from interpolating between aligned boundaries.



Hidden figures



Church of Sant'Ignazio di Loyola (17th C)



Fidelity and immersive capacity

• The immersive potential of a synthetic environment is dependent on– the validity of stimulus cues

– the willingness of the protagonist to suspend disbelief to the extent of accepting the premises of the simulation and overlooking known limitations of the medium

– sufficient domain knowledge available to protagonist from which to construct the illusory or missing aspects of the synthetic environment

• Method of illusion generation must not impact detrimentally on learning outcomes required of the training task– calibration by expert does not mean that the correct underlying cues are

present for generating responses

Perceptual processes

Decision-making and response

selection

Response programmingand execution

1Understanding skill

requirement(observation,

verbal / written instructions)

2Associative

stage(movement refined,

errors reduced, verbalisations reduced)

3Autonomous

stage(develop automaticity

or reflex)

Information processing approach (eg Neisser, 1967)

Motor learning approach (eg Fitts, 1964, Keele, 1973)

Ecological approach (eg Newell, 1986)task

environmentorganism

constraints

perception

action

Goal-directedbehaviour

(Adapted from Summers, 2004)

ControlCoordination Skill



Dynamic coordination and control

• Coordination strategies align organism with environment to achieve a task

• Alignment driven by “search plus selection under constraint”– constraints of task and environment

• Tasks and skills– macro level comprising micro level subsystems

• Limits of motor coordination– constraints on process (freezing degrees of freedom of movement)

– constraints on outcome (constraining goal to tighter and tighter performance criteria)

Increasing coordination decreases degrees of freedom on outcome rather than on specifics of how outcome is achieved



Role of instructor

• The role of the instructor or coach is– “to ensure the correct ‘discovery environment’ through the

manipulation of task and environmental constraints in an attempt to guide exploration of the dynamics of the perceptuo-motor workspace … if one uses the metaphor of a ‘story’ to conceptualise the skill acquisition process in sport, then the end-state form (the skill) to be acquired by each individual is not proscribed at the outset, but is painstakingly and creatively written ongoingly.”



Effects of constraints on training

• Directed coaching or synthetic training environments with limited dimensionality will only support a very narrow search process

• Unbounded workspaces allow unconstrained search which can unrewarding, inefficient and potentially unsafe

• Generalised ‘textbook’ approaches provide neatly packaged temporary solutions for immediate performance effects in specific environments

• Unique relationships between movement subsystems which influence long term performance transfer to novel situations will not be established in early learning



Mental models and cognitive understanding• novice versus expert• procedural versus conceptual• decision making



Simulations in the training continuum

• basic versus advanced training• desired end-point of training• dealing with complexity• continuous versus discrete time scales

– rate of learning

– temporal flow

– motivational factors of time pressure

Competency-based model versus master-apprentice observational learning model?


MUVES seminar seriesT

EC

HN

IQU

ES

TIME

high

rate

of l

earn

ing

low rate of learning

actual performanceincludes acquisition of new techniques and consolidation of learned techniques Some parameters:

* Rate-of-learning* Technical competence* Spare capacity * cognitive * psychomotor* Sequencing / flow * procedural chunking* Sensory-motor memory

Rate of learning / Spare cognitive capacity



Organisational factors

• cost - benefit … to whom?• contractor > vendor > organisational dynamics

– Cross-disciplinary teams often share terminology at the surface level which does not translate to shared understanding at the deep level –the same terminology means different things

presented by: Dr Lisa Wise

Documents

Transcript of presented by: Dr Lisa Wise