Since cognitive abilities have been shown to decrease with age, it is expected that older physicians would not perform as well as their younger counterparts on clinical cases unless their expertise can counteract the cognitive effects of aging. However, studies on the topic have shown contradictory results. This study aimed to further investigate…

The Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) has been widely used for measuring autistic traits however its factor structure has been primarily determined from nonclinic populations. This study aimed to establish an internally coherent and reliable factor structure for the AQ using a sample of 455 Australian adults of whom 141 had autism spectrum disorder…

Clinicians are believed to use two predominant reasoning strategies: system 1 based pattern recognition, and system 2 based analytical reasoning. Balancing these cognitive reasoning strategies is widely believed to reduce diagnostic error. However, clinicians approach different problems with different reasoning strategies. This study explores…

The purpose of this exploratory qualitative study was to determine the reasoning processes used by paramedics to solve clinical problems. Existing research documents concern over the accuracy of paramedics' clinical decision-making, but no research was found that examines the cognitive processes by which paramedics make either faulty or accurate…

This study examined patterns of performance on the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence-Revised (WPPSI-R) and the relationship of these patterns to diagnoses of behavioural problems. The sample consisted of 108 children between age 3 and 7 years inclusive who had been referred to a day-treatment program for a wide variety of…

We have used multiple sources to identify a population-representative cohort of newly diagnosed patients with parkinsonism and Parkinson's disease in the UK over a 2-year period. All patients have been invited to participate in a detailed clinical assessment either at home or in an outpatient clinic. These assessments have been used to refine…

An item format incorporating pattern recognition was designed to assess medical students' abilities in the area of clinical diagnosis. A group of approximately 20 faculty members of five New England medical schools met in Worcester for half of a day to develop pattern recognition items. Teams of four to six physicians were assigned to work on…

In this study an artificial intelligence assessment tool used disease-by-feature frequency estimates to create disease prototypes for nine common causes of acute chest pain. The tool then used each subject's prototypes and a pattern-recognition-based decision-making mechanism to diagnose 18 myocardial infarction cases. (MLW)

Although medical education currently emphasizes problem solving skills, recent evidence from psychological studies of clinical reasoning suggests that medical expertise is characterized by the gradual accumulation of experience in memory. This results in an ability to perceive, organize, and recall the extensive information given by the patient.…