Mixed-Reality physical task guidance systems have the benefit of providing virtual instructions while enabling learners to interact with the tangible world. However, they are mostly built around single-path tasks and often employ visual cues for motion guidance without explanations on why an action was recommended. In this paper, we introduce eXplainMR, a mixed-reality tutoring system that teaches medical trainees to perform cardiac ultrasound. eXplainMR automatically generates subgoals for obtaining an ultrasound image that contains clinically relevant information, and textual and visual explanations for each recommended move based on the visual difference between the two consecutive subgoals. We performed a between-subject experiment (N=16) in one US teaching hospital comparing eXplainMR with a baseline MR system that offers commonly used arrow and shadow guidance. We found that after using eXplainMR, medical trainees demonstrated a better understanding of anatomy and showed more systematic reasoning when deciding on the next moves, which was facilitated by the real-time explanations provided in eXplainMR.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3706598.3714015
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