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The effect of experience on detectability in local area anatomical noise

¹ Department of Medical Physics and Engineering, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Leeds General Infirmary, Leeds LS1 3EX, ² Academic Unit of Medical Physics and Centre of Medical Imaging Research and, ³ Institute of Digital Innovation, University of Teesside, Middlesbrough TS1 3BA, UK

Correspondence: Dr David S Brettle, Medical Physics and Engineering, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, 1th Floor Wellcome Wing, Beckett Street, Leeds LS1 3EX, UK. E-mail: dsb{at}medphysics.leeds.ac.uk.

The aim of this study was to investigate if the ability to detect clinically relevant signals, within local area clinically relevant texture, is related to experience. A two alternative forced choice interleaved staircase experiment was conducted on 101 observers split into three groups; group 1 with diagnostic experience, group 2 with experience of imaging but not of making a diagnosis and group 3 with no experience of imaging. Thresholds of detection within synthesized, clinically representative textures were measured for a 15 mm simulated lesion within an MR T₁ weighted brain texture and a 2.5 mm diameter simulated lesion embedded within X-ray trabecular bone texture. The results showed that there was a significant difference in threshold detectability between the groups for the brain texture at the 95% significance level but not for the bone texture. The experienced group did not demonstrate a correlation between their bone and brain results. However, the inexperienced group had a significant correlation between the bone and brain results. There was a significant correlation between increasing experience and detectability but this was dependent on the composition of the local area anatomical noise.

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