Virtual reality training represents a potential, viable solution for junior endoscopists, for overcoming the "fulcrum effect", in a replicable, safe learning environment which allows objective and reliable quantification of skill levels by trainers.

The Y-axis-inverted image has a detrimental effect on the performance of experienced surgeons, indicating that they have automated to the "fulcrum effect" of the abdominal wall on instrument manipulation. Y-axis-image inversion was found to facilitate significant learning trends, regardless of the participants' level of experience.

This is the first objective perceptual psychometric test to reliably predict laparoscopic technical skills. PicSOr provides a tool for assessing which trainees have the potential to learn minimal access surgery.

No abstract

The purpose of the present work was to investigate how members of the public perceived survivors of brain injury. A 20-item list of attributes that could be used to describe characteristics of survivors of brain injury were given to 323 participants. One hundred and sixty-nine psychology students and 154 members of the public agreed to take part in the study. The effects of group (student and public), gender and socioeconomic status (low, moderate and high) on the attributes were assessed. Multivariate analysis of variance showed a statistically significant difference between the two groups with students holding more positive perceptions on 15 out of the 20 attributes. No effects of gender or socioeconomic status were found. The research suggests that members of the public hold less positive views on survivors of brain injury in respect to intellectual competency, ability to care and trustworthiness when compared to students.