An Investigation on the Role of Affordance in the Design of Extended Reality based Environments for Surgical Training

This paper focuses on new types of affordances which can impact the HCI based design of Extended Reality (XR) based training environments. XR is an umbrella term used to describe Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR) training environments are presented. In the context of HCI, the objective is to study the role of affordances in impacting the training outcomes in terms of comprehension and skills acquisition. New affordances are proposed along with a categorization under visual and haptic affordance. The notion of dynamic affordance is also proposed. The impact of these affordances on comprehension and skills acquisition is discussed in the context of a surgical procedure called condylar plating surgery (which is performed to treat the fractures of the femur bone). A genetic algorithm-based approach to help in surgical planning is also discussed, which can be integrated with the training activities. The results of Assessment activities on the acquisition of skills and knowledge during interactions with the training environments is also discussed.