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Review
. 2017 Sep 28:8:1620.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01620. eCollection 2017.

The Holistic Processing Account of Visual Expertise in Medical Image Perception: A Review

Heather Sheridan  1 , Eyal M Reingold  2
Affiliations
Review

The Holistic Processing Account of Visual Expertise in Medical Image Perception: A Review

Heather Sheridan et al. Front Psychol. .

Abstract

In the field of medical image perception, the holistic processing perspective contends that experts can rapidly extract global information about the image, which can be used to guide their subsequent search of the image (Swensson, 1980; Nodine and Kundel, 1987; Kundel et al., 2007). In this review, we discuss the empirical evidence supporting three different predictions that can be derived from the holistic processing perspective: Expertise in medical image perception is domain-specific, experts use parafoveal and/or peripheral vision to process large regions of the image in parallel, and experts benefit from a rapid initial glimpse of an image. In addition, we discuss a pivotal recent study (Litchfield and Donovan, 2016) that seems to contradict the assumption that experts benefit from a rapid initial glimpse of the image. To reconcile this finding with the existing literature, we suggest that global processing may serve multiple functions that extend beyond the initial glimpse of the image. Finally, we discuss future research directions, and we highlight the connections between the holistic processing account and similar theoretical perspectives and findings from other domains of visual expertise.

Keywords: attention; expert performance; eye movements; holistic processing; medical image perception; radiology; time course; visual expertise.

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