Development of diagnostic performance & visual processing in different types of radiological expertise

Abstract

The aim of this research was to compare visual patterns while examining radiographs in groups of people with different levels and different types of expertise. Introducing the latter comparative base is the original contribution of these studies. The residents and specialists were trained in medical diagnosing of X-Rays and for these two groups it was possible to compare visual patterns between observers with different level of the same expertise type. On the other hand, the radiographers who took part in the examination - due to specific of their daily work - had experience in reading and evaluating X-Rays quality and were not trained in diagnosing. Involving this group created in our research the new opportunity to explore eye movements obtained when examining X-Ray for both medical diagnosing and quality assessment purposes, which may be treated as different types of expertise. We found that, despite the low diagnosing performance, the radiographers eye movement characteristics were more similar to the specialists than eye movement characteristics of the residents. It may be inferred that people with different type of expertise, yet after gaining a certain level of experience (or practise), may develop similar visual patterns which is the original conclusion of the research.