An expert advantage in detecting unfamiliar visual signals in noise

Abstract

<jats:title>Significance</jats:title> <jats:p>Radiologists have years of experience in inspecting medical images for anomalies and thus are visual experts with the particular object class of medical images. Do the perceptual skills acquired in medical imaging benefit perception outside the trained domain? Here, radiologists and novice controls were compared on the ability to perform a visual detection task that was unfamiliar to all subjects. Subjects detected patterns in noise that were unlike medical images to which radiologists are routinely exposed. Radiologists were superior to the control groups in all stimulus conditions and maintained their advantage after both groups improved on the task. These results suggest that the perceptual skills developed in diagnostic radiology generalize to certain unfamiliar visual judgments.</jats:p>