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Objective: This research was designed to test whether behavioral indicators of pathology-related cue utilization were associated with performance on a diagnostic task. Background: Across many domains, including pathology, successful diagnosis depends on pattern recognition that is supported by associations in memory in the form of cues. Previous studies have focused on the specific information or knowledge on which medical image expertise relies. The target in this study is the more general ability to identify and interpret relevant information. Method: Data were collected from 54 histopathologists in both conference and online settings. The participants completed a pathology edition of the Expert Intensive Skills Evaluation 2.0 (EXPERTise 2.0) to establish behavioral indicators of context-related cue utilization. They also completed a separate diagnostic task designed to examine related diagnostic skills. Results: Behavioral indicators of higher or lower cue utilization were based on the participants' performance across five tasks. Accounting for the number of cases reported per year, higher cue utilization was associated with greater accuracy on the diagnostic task. A post hoc analysis suggested that higher cue utilization may be associated with a greater capacity to recognize low prevalence cases. Conclusion: This study provides support for the role of cue utilization in the development and maintenance of skilled diagnosis amongst pathologists. Application: Pathologist training needs to be structured to ensure that learners have the opportunity to form cue-based strategies and associations in memory, especially for less commonly seen diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Driving is a high‐risk and cognitively demanding activity that requires the efficient use of cognitive resources to inhibit responses when necessary to avoid accidents. Cue utilization, via an inherent capacity for pattern recognition, is one strategy that may be applied while driving to reduce cognitive load allowing for the allocation of resources to other demanding tasks. The present study was designed to measure the contribution of cue utilization in a driving context on performance in a response inhibition task. Undergraduate students (N = 105) completed the driving edition of EXPERTise 2.0 as an online assessment of cue utilization and a measure of response inhibition, the Stop‐Signal Task. The results indicated that participants with relatively higher cue utilization were more accurate at inhibiting responses, but there was no difference in their response times. These findings provide support for cue utilization as one strategy that may improve response inhibition through the acquisition and recognition of patterns, thereby decreasing cognitive load. The practical implications for drivers will be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Echocardiographers can detect abnormalities accurately and rapidly from dynamic images. This is likely due to the application of cue‐based associations resident in memory, a process known as cue utilization. This study investigated whether cue utilization is associated with the ability to apply within‐domain capabilities (dynamic) to more degraded images (static). Fifty‐eight echocardiographers completed the echocardiography edition of the Expert Intensive Skills Evaluation 2.0 (EXPERTise 2.0) to establish behavioral indicators of within‐domain cue utilization. They also completed an abnormality detection and categorization task that comprised briefly presented static and moving images (50% abnormal). Behaviors consistent with higher cue utilization were associated with greater accuracy in detecting both static and dynamic images but not for categorization. This study provides important information about how experts who have the capacity to utilize cue‐based strategies can rapidly and accurately detect abnormalities from domain‐specific stimuli and generalize their skills to more challenging stimuli. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This research was designed to examine the contribution of self-reported experience and cue utilization to diagnostic accuracy in the context of radiology.Background: Within radiology, it is unclear how task-related experience contributes to the acquisition of associations between features with events in memory, or cues, and how they contribute to diagnostic performance.Method: Data were collected from 18 trainees and 41 radiologists. The participants completed a radiology edition of the established cue utilization assessment tool EXPERTise 2.0, which provides a measure of cue utilization based on performance on a number of domain-specific tasks. The participants also completed a separate image interpretation task as an independent measure of diagnostic performance.Results: Consistent with previous research, a k-means cluster analysis using the data from EXPERTise 2.0 delineated two groups, the pattern of centroids of which reflected higher and lower cue utilization. Controlling for years of experience, participants with higher cue utilization were more accurate on the image interpretation task compared to participants who demonstrated relatively lower cue utilization (p = .01).Conclusion: This study provides support for the role of cue utilization in assessments of radiology images among qualified radiologists. Importantly, it also demonstrates that cue utilization and self-reported years of experience as a radiologist make independent contributions to performance on the radiological diagnostic task.Application: Task-related experience, including training, needs to be structured to ensure that learners have the opportunity to acquire feature-event relationships and internalize these associations in the form of cues in memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Echocardiographers are highly specialised, skilled practitioners who play a critical role in medical imaging diagnostics. Yet, little is known about the cognitive and perceptual attributes of experts within this domain. This study was designed to examine the role of individual differences in expertise. Specifically, the contribution of a domain general visual expertise and pattern recognition, or cue utilization. Data were collected from 42 echocardiographers and 43 naïve participants. All of the participants competed the Novel Object Memory Test (NOMT). When compared, the echocardiographers were more accurate than the naïve participants. The echocardiographers also completed an echocardiography edition of the Expert Intensive Skills Evaluation 2.0, to establish behavioral indicators of context‐related cue utilization. Those with relatively higher cue utilization performed more accurately on the NOMT, controlling for exposure. These results suggest that a general perceptual ability contributes to echocardiography potential and a sensitivity to cue‐based learning may contribute to expertise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The human visual system is capable of processing an enormous amount of information in a short time. Although rapid target detection has been explored extensively, less is known about target localization. Here we used natural scenes and explored the relationship between being able to detect a target (present vs. absent) and being able to localize it. Across four presentation durations (~ 33–199 ms), participants viewed scenes taken from two superordinate categories (natural and manmade), each containing exemplars from four basic scene categories. In a two-interval forced choice task, observers were asked to detect a Gabor target inserted in one of the two scenes. This was followed by one of two different localization tasks. Participants were asked either to discriminate whether the target was on the left or the right side of the display or to click on the exact location where they had seen the target. Targets could be detected and localized at our shortest exposure duration (~ 33 ms), with a predictable improvement in performance with increasing exposure duration. We saw some evidence at this shortest duration of detection without localization, but further analyses demonstrated that these trials typically reflected coarse or imprecise localization information, rather than its complete absence. Experiment 2 replicated our main findings while exploring the effect of the level of "openness" in the scene. Our results are consistent with the notion that when we are able to extract what objects are present in a scene, we also have information about where each object is, which provides crucial guidance for our goal-directed actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radiologists make critical decisions based on searching and interpreting medical images. The probability of a lung nodule differs across anatomical regions within the chest, raising the possibility that radiologists might have a prior expectation that creates an attentional bias. The development of expertise is also thought to cause "tuning" to relevant features, allowing radiologists to become faster and more accurate at detecting potential masses within their domain of expertise. Here, we tested both radiologists and control participants with a novel attentional-cueing paradigm to investigate whether the deployment of attention was affected (1) by a context that might invoke prior knowledge for experts, (2) by a nodule localized either on the same or on opposite sides as a subsequent target, and (3) by inversion of the nodule-present chest radiographs, to assess the orientation specificity of any effects. The participants also performed a nodule detection task to verify that our presentation duration was sufficient to extract diagnostic information. We saw no evidence of priors triggered by a normal chest radiograph cue affecting attention. When the cue was an upright abnormal chest radiograph, radiologists were faster when the lateralised nodule and the subsequent target appeared at the same rather than at opposite locations, suggesting attention was captured by the nodule. The opposite pattern was present for inverted images. We saw no evidence of cueing for control participants in any condition, which suggests that radiologists are indeed more sensitive to visual features that are not perceived as salient by naïve observers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The mere presence of a mobile phone while driving is distracting. • Phone presence is distracting regardless of its proximity to the driver or whether it is on or off. • Highly phone dependent individuals are more susceptible to distraction by phone presence. The ubiquity of mobile phones has led to a rapid increase in its presence and use in vehicles, especially among young adults (up to 25 years), who are generally the least experienced group of drivers. The potential for phones to draw attention away from the main driving task has significant consequences for road safety. Previous studies have found that the mere presence of a mobile phone can be distracting by impairing attention in experimental non-driving contexts. However, the effect of phone presence, independent to usage, has not yet been examined in the context of driving. As such, the present study examined whether the mere presence of a mobile phone, its proximity to the driver, and power status (on/off) influenced the driving performance of young drivers. Additionally, this study assessed whether the effects of phone presence and proximity were moderated by an individual's level of dependence on, or emotional attachment to, their phone. A sample of 127 undergraduate psychology students (M = 19.76, SD = 1.63) were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: (1) phone absent (control), (2) phone on, in holder, (3) phone off, in holder, and (4) phone on, in pocket. They all completed the same simulated drive, and were measured for degree of phone dependence and phone emotional attachment. Overall, drivers in all the phone present conditions made significantly more driving errors (speeding and collision) compared to those in the phone absent (control) condition, irrespective of proximity to the phone and whether it was on or off. Phone dependence, but not phone emotional attachment, moderated the effect of phone presence on speeding behaviour. These findings suggest that the mere presence of a phone is distracting for drivers, especially so for those who are highly dependent on their phone, which may place them at a greater risk of a distraction induced crash. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]