Spatial perception during laparoscopy: implementing action-perception coupling.

Laparoscopy is a telepresence task since the surgeon has no direct contract with the patient. Performance of the surgeon will increase if his sense of telepresence is improved. This can be achieved by restoring the hampered action perception coupling. With respect to visual perception this means that the surgeon should be informed about the spatial lay-out of the environment; depth information and information about the location of observation. Both types of information can be provided by allowing the surgeon to explore. This paper describes our work on restoring the action perception coupling with respect to visual perception. It provides an overview of different technical solutions which balance between what information should be provided from an perceptual stand point and what information can be provided from a technical viewpoint.