Open AccessPrevalence in Visual Search: From the Clinic to the Lab and Back Again
Author(s) -
Horowitz Todd S.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
japanese psychological research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.392
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1468-5884
pISSN - 0021-5368
DOI - 10.1111/jpr.12153
Subject(s) - visual search , interpretation (philosophy) , context (archaeology) , meaning (existential) , perception , cognition , psychology , cognitive psychology , clinical psychology , applied psychology , psychiatry , computer science , psychotherapist , paleontology , neuroscience , biology , programming language
One of the most important applications of visual search is in the interpretation of medical images. Like many applications of visual search, medical image interpretation is typically characterized as a low “prevalence” context, meaning that targets are relatively rare. Breast cancer screening, for example, has a prevalence of around 0.5%. In this review, I present a survey of research on the effects of prevalence on visual search from both the medical image perception and basic psychological science perspectives. In order to provide some quantitative rigor, I include a meta‐analysis of the effects of low prevalence on visual search performance. I synthesize findings from both fields, and identify both the practical suggestions for clinical practice and theoretical insights for cognitive psychologists.