Haptic Feedback Reduces Telesurgery Operators’ Reaction Times Compared to Conventional Stimulation: Results of a First-in-Human Study

This prospective, cross-sectional study evaluated reaction time (RT) variations across different sensory stimuli to investigate the efficacy of haptic feedback (HF) in reducing response latency for telesurgical applications. Three healthy-volunteer age cohorts (18–25, 35–45, and 55–65 years) were tested using visual, auditory, superficial, and deep sensations, alongside a multimodal stimulus combining visual and superficial inputs to simulate HF. The findings revealed that combined visual and superficial stimulation yielded a mean RT of 227 ± 27 ms, outperforming visual-only stimulation by 40 ms (95% CI: 32–48 ms) and superficial-only stimulation by 26 ms (95% CI: 20–33 ms) (p = 0.001). While this performance boost was consistent across all age groups, the 55–65 age cohort demonstrated the most pronounced reduction in RT when the combined stimuli were used. These results suggest that integrating tactile sensations with visual cues significantly mitigates latency compared to unimodal inputs, underscoring the potential of haptic feedback to enhance operator performance and safety in latency-sensitive environments like remote surgery.