Individual differences in echocardiography: Visual object recognition ability predicts cue utilization

Abstract

Echocardiographers are highly specialised, skilled practitioners who play a critical role in medical imaging diagnostics. Yet, little is known about the cognitive and perceptual attributes of experts within this domain. This study was designed to examine the role of individual differences in expertise. Specifically, the contribution of a domain general visual expertise and pattern recognition, or cue utilization. Data were collected from 42 echocardiographers and 43 naïve participants. All of the participants competed the Novel Object Memory Test (NOMT). When compared, the echocardiographers were more accurate than the naïve participants. The echocardiographers also completed an echocardiography edition of the Expert Intensive Skills Evaluation 2.0, to establish behavioral indicators of context-related cue utilization. Those with relatively higher cue utilization performed more accurately on the NOMT, controlling for exposure. These results suggest that a general perceptual ability contributes to echocardiography potential and a sensitivity to cue-based learning may contribute to expertise.

The effect of expertise, target usefulness and image structure on visual search

“…Perhaps the tasks were not sufficiently sensitive to parse the varied levels of skill within our sample of experts. Alternatively, self-reported years of experience is a poor measure of actual domain expertise because it can vary considerably from one person to the next and does not capture the quality of one’s training (Carrigan et al, 2020 ). There is also evidence that competence in a domain plateaus within a few years (Choudhry et al, 2005 ; Ericsson, 2004 ).…”

“…For instance, the location of two objects on a screen and their relative trajectory may signal to an air-traffic controller that a change of course is needed (Loft et al, 2007 ). When using cues effectively, viewers rapidly attend to a small number of highly relevant features to arrive at accurate decisions, which has the benefit of reducing cognitive load (Brouwers et al, 2016 ; Carrigan et al, 2020 ; Curby & Gauthier, 2007 ; Curby et al, 2009 ; Sturman et al, 2019 ). With this skill, experts tend to become sensitive to the most useful features of a domain and diverge from novices in what they perceive as salient (e.g., Carrigan et al, 2019 ).…”

“…There are, however, skills that appear to generalize beyond narrow fields of formal training (see Cain et al, 2012 ; Carrigan et al, 2020 ; Green & Bavelier, 2003 , 2006 ; Sowden et al, 2000 ; Sunday et al, 2018 ). Perhaps experts in some fields are selected for because they possess above average general perceptual abilities, or perhaps their training has granted them skills that apply to a broad range of stimuli and tasks.…”

“…Perhaps experts in some fields are selected for because they possess above average general perceptual abilities, or perhaps their training has granted them skills that apply to a broad range of stimuli and tasks. In fact, a measure of domain general visual expertise-the Novel Object Memory Test (NOMT)-has been designed and validated in several studies (Sunday et al, 2018;Carrigan et al, 2020). It is unclear whether a sensitivity to useful features, and the ability to search for them, is domain-specific or driven by more general pattern recognition capacities.…”

Static versus dynamic medical images: The role of cue utilization in diagnostic performance

“…Individual differences in cue utilization have been demonstrated across many domains including medicine (e.g., Crane et al, 2018; Carrigan et al, 2020b; Carrigan et al, 2021; Loveday et al, 2013). Carrigan, Stoodley, Fernandez, Sunday, et al, (2020c) examined whether a domain‐general visual object recognition predicted cue utilization for echocardiographers compared with naïve participants. The participants were presented the Novel Object Memory Test (NOMT: Richler et al, 2017) and the echocardiography edition of the Expert Intensive Skills Evaluation 2.0 (Wiggins et al, 2015) to establish behavioral indicators of context‐related cue utilization.…”