Eye Movements in Medical Image Perception: A Selective Review of Past, Present and Future.

Chia-Chien Wu,Jeremy M Wolfe

doi:10.3390/vision3020032

Abstract

The eye movements of experts, reading medical images, have been studied for many years. Unlike topics such as face perception, medical image perception research needs to cope with substantial, qualitative changes in the stimuli under study due to dramatic advances in medical imaging technology. For example, little is known about how radiologists search through 3D volumes of image data because they simply did not exist when earlier eye tracking studies were performed. Moreover, improvements in the affordability and portability of modern eye trackers make other, new studies practical. Here, we review some uses of eye movements in the study of medical image perception with an emphasis on newer work. We ask how basic research on scene perception relates to studies of medical ‘scenes’ and we discuss how tracking experts’ eyes may provide useful insights for medical education and screening efficiency.

Highlights

Detection and diagnosis in medicine are frequently based on analysis of medical images
Many of the basic perceptual issues do not. Nodine and their colleagues and students have worked for many years on a set of issues that remain relevant today. We will organize this brief review starting with the scanpaths that can be measured during visual search, since the sequences of eye movements are the basic data that is collected in eye movement studies in medical image research
Findings and Satisfaction of Search. How does this taxonomy of errors apply to 3DErrors volumes of image data? The short answer is that the correct studies have not been done, but there are somefurther hints

Summary

Introduction

Detection and diagnosis in medicine are frequently based on analysis of medical images. Technologies, like CT, create a set of virtual slices through some volume of the body (e.g., the chest) and produce a 3D volume of image data to be examined [7]. They could look at nuclear medicine images (e.g., positron emission tomography—PET). Nodine and their colleagues and students have worked for many years on a set of issues that remain relevant today We will organize this brief review starting with the scanpaths that can be measured during visual search, since the sequences of eye movements are the basic data that is collected in eye movement studies in medical image research. For other important topics in the field of eye movements in medical image perception (e.g., medical training and education), there are other useful reviews: For example, [12,13,14]

Scanpaths

Scanpath Signatures of Errors in Medical Image Perception

Findings and Satisfaction of Search

Incidental Findings and Satisfaction of Search Errors

Scene Gist and Medical Scene Gist

Conclusions