Medical Education
Social interactions play a pivotal role in shaping the professional identity, competence, and empathy of future healthcare professionals. From problem-based learning (PBL) that leverages group discussions for solving problems in clinical scenarios, to the apprenticeship model that underscores learning in the context of professional relationships, social interactions form the foundation of effective learning environments in medical education.
However, capturing and assessing social interactions remains an unsolved problem. One approach to study social interactions is dual eye-tracking. This sensor-based technology collects attentional data from two or more participants. Unlike traditional eye-tracking methods, which record the gaze of only one person at a time (single eye-tracking, SIET), dual eye-tracking tracks the eye movements of two individuals simultaneously.
Eye tracking reveals where individuals look at, when they shift their gaze, and how long they fixate on specific areas of interest – which can be used as indicators of attention and underlying cognitive processing (Brunyé et al., 2019; Darici et al., 2023b). Modern eye-trackers incorporate pupillometry, which involves recording momentary changes in pupil diameter that serves as a psychophysiological index of cognitive load (Mitre-Hernandez et al., 2021), arousal levels (Wang et al., 2018), and emotional states (Chang et al., 2023).
Dual ET approachesDUET extends these capabilities by providing indicators of the convergence or divergence of two individuals’ gaze patterns in real-time. This offers new ways to study dyad-level interaction patterns, such as joint visual attention (Schneider & Bryant, 2024), joint mental effort (Sharma & Olsen, 2022), and leader-follower dynamics (i.e., who is leading, and who is following; Schneider et al., 2018). These metrics have been linked with learning outcomes in higher education, such as problem-solving skills, communication, and collaboration efficiency (Schneider et al., 2024). Therefore dual eye-tracking technology holds potential for studying social interactions in medical training, where practical skills, situational awareness, and the ability to read subtle cues are vital.
Despite the promising research opportunities DUET offers, its application in medical education has been sparse. In this project, we are exploring how DUET can offer new insights to improve medical education.