People miss a high proportion of targets that only appear rarely. This low prevalence (LP) effect has implications for applied search tasks such as the clinical reading of mammograms. Computer aided detection (CAD) has been used to help radiologists search mammograms by highlighting areas likely to contain a cancer. Previous research has found a…

For over 50 years, the satisfaction of search effect has been studied within the field of radiology. Defined as a decrease in detection rates for a subsequent target when an initial target is found within the image, these multiple target errors are known to underlie errors of omission (e.g., a radiologist is more likely to miss an abnormality if…

Forensic science practitioners compare visual evidence samples (e.g. fingerprints) and decide if they originate from the same person or different people (i.e. fingerprint 'matching'). These tasks are perceptually and cognitively complex--even practising professionals can make errors--and what limited research exists suggests that existing…

In radiological screening, clinicians scan myriads of radiographs with the intent of recognizing and differentiating lesions. Even though they are trained experts, radiologists' human search engines are not perfect: average daily error rates are estimated around 3-5%. A main underlying assumption in radiological screening is that visual search on…