Visual discrimination of pigmented skin lesions.

Abstract

Three experiments explored human performance in discrimination of pigmented skin lesions from photographic slides. Experiment 1 showed that latent ability in identifying early melanoma was low, and some benign lesions tended to be falsely identified as serious. Performance overall did not decline when viewing time was reduced, suggesting that judgments could be made on the general appearance of lesions. Experiment 2 showed that enlargement of stimuli had no effect. Experiment 3 showed that performance was better with pictorial examples than with written descriptions for some classes of lesion, but for melanoma performance improved with longer viewing time when information was provided, suggesting that an opportunity to scrutinize could be beneficial. Guidelines to the public should distinguish melanoma from benign lesions and stress the importance of seeking prompt medical attention for suspicious lesions.

Superiority of a cognitive education with photographs over ABCD criteria in the education of the general population to the early detection of melanoma: A randomized study

“…Although performed in artificial conditions, both concluded that there was a superiority of photographs over written information. 9,10 Similarly, dermatologists in their daily practice have been shown to base their diagnostic opinion on this holistic image recognition process and not on an algorithmic strategy. 8 Second, the discriminative properties of this ABCD strategy in the hands of laymen in an everyday situation are doubtful.…”

First Prospective Study of the Recognition Process of Melanoma in Dermatological Practice

“…A first step is to understand how the natural recognition process of MM works, especially in people who have the best accuracy in this field, ie, the dermatologists. [11][12][13][14] Very few studies have investigated the recognition process of pigmented lesions by physicians, 15,16 and these were based on slide presentations rather than clinical situations.…”

Using Morphed Images to Study Visual Detection of Cutaneous Melanoma Symptom Evolution

“…Although dermatologists are adept at recognizing problem lesions, visual detection appears to be difficult for nonspecialist physicians who, importantly, are likely to be the first practitioners to encounter problem lesions (Miles & Meehan, 1995). For instance, in one study only 12% of nondermatology physicians and third-year medical students recognized melanoma lesions in photographs (Cassileth et al, 1986).…”

“…Unfortunately, laypersons, even those who have previously sought medical assistance because of skin worries, are inconsistent in recognizing melanoma symptoms (e.g., Branstrom, Hedblad, Krakau, & Ullen, 2002;Liu et al, 2005;Miles & Meehan, 1995).…”