Satisfaction of Search (SOS), an increased likelihood of missing a lesion/target when another lesion/target was already detected in the same image, is a known search problem in medical image perception and cognitive science. Currently, it is unknown the extent to which SOS affects lesion detection in breast imaging. Here we investigated SOS rates with novices (college undergraduates) and experts (residents, fellows, and certified radiologists) in virtual (computer-generated) tomograms. The virtual images were created with the OpenVCT framework simulating the breast anatomy of patients and could contain zero, one, or two masses. Participants were asked to search and click on up to two masses per image. When compared to novices, experts: 1) made fewer false alarms (experts 19.5%, novices 29.1%; marginally significant effect), 2) were better in correct rejections (experts 76.7%, novices 44.5%), and 3) made fewer SOS errors (experts 14.2%, novices 30.7%). These findings are the first to demonstrate the SOS effect in breast imaging and emphasize the importance of expertise in breast cancer detection.
|