Incidental recognition reveals attentional tradeoffs shaped by categorical similarity.

Search efficiency suffers when observers look for multiple targets or a single imprecisely defined target. These conditions prevent a narrow target template, resulting in improved delayed distractor recognition. In our first experiment with hybrid visual and memory search, we investigated the interaction of target variety and target number on search efficiency. Results supported the hypothesis that numerous targets impair search efficiency much more when targets are unrelated. These efficiency impairments were linked to distractor processing, indicated by increased delayed recognition. A second experiment manipulated target-distractor similarity to determine whether prioritization of target-defining features is totally eliminated in search for eight unrelated targets. For related and unrelated targets alike, recognition declined for distractors bearing less resemblance to targets and more to each other. This suggests templates for unrelated targets successfully prioritize relevant features at some stage of attention. Avoidance of random distractors was stronger when targets were related, at the price of slower, more error-prone identification of within-category distractors. Within-category processing difficulty for related targets likely stems from categorical interference as previously demonstrated in recognition memory. Thus, target variety versus homogeneity afforded different advantages and limitations depending on target number, target-distractor, and distractor-distractor resemblance. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Pathologist pupil dilation reflects experience level and difficulty in diagnosing medical images.

Purpose: Digital whole slide imaging allows pathologists to view slides on a computer screen instead of under a microscope. Digital viewing allows for real-time monitoring of pathologists' search behavior and neurophysiological responses during the diagnostic process. One particular neurophysiological measure, pupil diameter, could provide a basis for evaluating clinical competence during training or developing tools that support the diagnostic process. Prior research shows that pupil diameter is sensitive to cognitive load and arousal, and it switches between exploration and exploitation of a visual image. Different categories of lesions in pathology pose different levels of challenge, as indicated by diagnostic disagreement among pathologists. If pupil diameter is sensitive to the perceived difficulty in diagnosing biopsies, eye-tracking could potentially be used to identify biopsies that may benefit from a second opinion. Approach: We measured case onset baseline-corrected (phasic) and uncorrected (tonic) pupil diameter in 90 pathologists who each viewed and diagnosed 14 digital breast biopsy cases that cover the diagnostic spectrum from benign to invasive breast cancer. Pupil data were extracted from the beginning of viewing and interpreting of each individual case. After removing 122 trials ( < 10 % ) with poor eye-tracking quality, 1138 trials remained. We used multiple linear regression with robust standard error estimates to account for dependent observations within pathologists. Results: We found a positive association between the magnitude of phasic dilation and subject-centered difficulty ratings and between the magnitude of tonic dilation and untransformed difficulty ratings. When controlling for case diagnostic category, only the tonic-difficulty relationship persisted. Conclusions: Results suggest that tonic pupil dilation may indicate overall arousal differences between pathologists as they interpret biopsy cases and could signal a need for additional training, experience, or automated decision aids. Phasic dilation is sensitive to characteristics of biopsies that tend to elicit higher difficulty ratings and could indicate a need for a second opinion.

More scanning, but not zooming, is associated with diagnostic accuracy in evaluating digital breast pathology slides.

Diagnoses of medical images can invite strikingly diverse strategies for image navigation and visual search. In computed tomography screening for lung nodules, distinct strategies, termed scanning and drilling, relate to both radiologists' clinical experience and accuracy in lesion detection. Here, we examined associations between search patterns and accuracy for pathologists (N = 92) interpreting a diverse set of breast biopsy images. While changes in depth in volumetric images reveal new structures through movement in the z-plane, in digital pathology changes in depth are associated with increased magnification. Thus, "drilling" in radiology may be more appropriately termed "zooming" in pathology. We monitored eye-movements and navigation through digital pathology slides to derive metrics of how quickly the pathologists moved through XY (scanning) and Z (zooming) space. Prior research on eye-movements in depth has categorized clinicians as either "scanners" or "drillers." In contrast, we found that there was no reliable association between a clinician's tendency to scan or zoom while examining digital pathology slides. Thus, in the current work we treated scanning and zooming as continuous predictors rather than categorizing as either a "scanner" or "zoomer." In contrast to prior work in volumetric chest images, we found significant associations between accuracy and scanning rate but not zooming rate. These findings suggest fundamental differences in the relative value of information types and review behaviors across two image formats. Our data suggest that pathologists gather critical information by scanning on a given plane of depth, whereas radiologists drill through depth to interrogate critical features.

The performance costs of interruption during visual search are determined by the type of search task.

Prior research has shown that interruptions lead to a variety of performance costs. However, these costs are heterogenous and poorly understood. Under some circumstances, interruptions lead to large decreases in accuracy on the primary task, whereas in others task duration increases, but task accuracy is unaffected. Presently, the underlying cause of these costs is unclear. The Memory for Goals model suggests that interruptions interfere with the ability to represent the current goal of the primary task. Here, we test the idea that working memory (WM) may play a critical role in representing the current goal and thus may underlie the observed costs associated with interruption. In two experiments, we utilized laboratory-based visual search tasks, which differed in their WM demands, in order to assess how this difference influenced the observed interruption costs. Interruptions led to more severe performance costs when the target of the search changed on each trial. When the search target was consistent across trials, the cost of interruption was greatly reduced. This suggests that the WM demands associated with the primary task play an important role in determining the performance costs of interruption. Our findings suggest that it is important for research to consider the cognitive processes a task engages in order to predict the nature of the adverse effects of interruption in applied settings such as radiology.

Through the eyes of the expert: Evaluating holistic processing in architects through gaze-contingent viewing.

Studies in the psychology of visual expertise have tended to focus on a limited set of expert domains, such as radiology and athletics. Conclusions drawn from these data indicate that experts use parafoveal vision to process images holistically. In this study, we examined a novel, as-of-yet-unstudied class of visual experts-architects-expecting similar results. However, the results indicate that architects, though visual experts, may not employ the holistic processing strategy observed in their previously studied counterparts. Participants (n = 48, 24 architects, 24 naïve) were asked to find targets in chest radiographs and perspective images. All images were presented in both gaze-contingent and normal viewing conditions. Consistent with a holistic processing model, we expected two results: (1) architects would display a greater difference in saccadic amplitude between the gaze-contingent and normal conditions, and (2) architects would spend less time per search than an undergraduate control group. We found that the architects were more accurate in the perspectival task, but they took more time and displayed a lower difference in saccadic amplitude than the controls. Our research indicates a disjunctive conclusion. Either architects are simply different kinds of visual experts than those previously studied, or we have generated a task that employs visual expertise without holistic processing. Our data suggest a healthy skepticism for across-the-board inferences collected from a single domain of expertise to the nature of visual expertise generally. More work is needed to determine whether holism is a feature of all visual expertise.