title: The effect of expert knowledge on medical search: medical experts have specialized abilities for detecting serious lesions.
abstract: How does domain-specific knowledge influence the experts' performance in their domain of expertise? Specifically, can visual search experts find, with uniform efficiency, any type of target in their domain of expertise? We examined whether acquired knowledge of target importance influences an expert's visual search performance. In some professional searches (e.g., medical screenings), certain targets are rare; one aim of this study was to examine the extent to which experts miss such targets in their searches. In one experiment, radiologists (medical experts) engaged in a medical lesion search task in which both the importance (i.e., seriousness/gravity) and the prevalence of targets varied. Results showed decreased target detection rates in the low prevalence conditions (i.e., the prevalence effect). Also, experts were better at detecting important (versus unimportant) lesions. Results of an experiment using novices ruled out the possibility that decreased performance with unimportant targets was due to low target noticeability/visibility. Overall, the findings suggest that radiologists do not have a generalized ability to detect any type of lesion; instead, they have acquired a specialized ability to detect only those important lesions relevant for effective medical practices.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Graduate School of Humanities and Society, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-Ku, Tokyo, 113-0033, Japan, one.island.one@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Ryoichi
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Nakashima
authors.forename: Chisaki
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Watanabe
authors.forename: Eriko
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Maeda
authors.forename: Takeharu
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yoshikawa
authors.forename: Izuru
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Matsuda
authors.forename: Soichiro
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Miki
authors.forename: Kazuhiko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yokosawa
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001076:Aptitude; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011857:Radiographic Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted; D055815:Young Adult