Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Surgical error is the most frequent and costly type of medical error, posing a direct threat to patient safety. Surgical errorshave been described as a ’cognitive phenomenon’, as it is largely the shortcomings of the surgeons cognitive processingthat leads to error. In laparoscopic surgery, visuospatial processes are known to be crucial for skill acquisition, although itremains unclear as to which exact processes are important, how these develop over time and intraoperatively, and how theyinfluence competency development. We will report interim spatial cognitive baseline results of 35 surgeons, 17 residentsand 18 specialists, taking part in an on-going longitudinal study at two major hospitals in Germany. Our results offernew insight into the role of visuospatial cognition in domain-specific expertise, and shed new light on the malleability ofvisuospatial processes in the skill acquisition process.