The Effects of 3D and 2D Imaging on Brain Wave Activity in Laparoscopic Training

The current study tested the effects of a state-of-the-art stereoscopic three-dimensional (3D) display and a traditional two-dimensional (2D) display on performance and mental workload during simulated laparoscopic tasks with different levels of depth perception over a longer duration than in previous publications. Two different simulated laparoscopic tasks with depth perception, peg transfer, and circle-tracing were performed by 12 participants using 2D and 3D vision systems. The task performances (mean completion time and mean error frequency) and mental workload measures (gamma and alpha brain wave activity, blink frequency and NASA-TLX ratings) were recorded as dependent variables. The physiological mental workload measures were collected via a MUSE EEG headband. The 3D vision system had advantages in mean movement time and mean error frequency in the depth-perception peg transfer task. The mean completion time of the non-depth perception circle-tracing task was significantly lower for 2D than for 3D. For the peg transfer task, EEG alpha wave activity was significantly higher for 3D than for 2D. The EEG gamma wave activity for 2D was significantly higher than that for 3D in both tasks. A significantly higher blink frequency was found for both the peg transfer task and the 3D system. The overall NASA-TLX score of the 2D system was significantly higher. The findings of this research suggest that a 3D vision system could decrease stress, state of attentiveness, and mental workload compared with those of a 2D system, and it might reduce the completion time and increase the precision of depth-perception laparoscopic operations.