| dc.description.abstract | Predictive modeling of human visual search behavior and the underlying metacognitive processes is now possible thanks to significant advances in bio-sensing device technology and machine intelligence. Eye tracking bio-sensors, for example, can measure psycho-physiological response through change events in configuration of the human eye. These events include positional changes such as visual fixation, saccadic movements, and scanpath, and non-positional changes such as blinks and pupil dilation and constriction. Using data from eye-tracking sensors, we can model human perception, cognitive processes, and responses to external stimuli.
In this study, we investigated the visuo-cognitive behavior of clinicians during the diagnostic decision process for breast cancer screening under clinically equivalent experimental conditions involving multiple monitors and breast projection views. Using a head-mounted eye tracking device and a customized user interface, we recorded eye change events and diagnostic decisions from 10 clinicians (three breast-imaging radiologists and seven Radiology residents) for a corpus of 100 screening mammograms (comprising cases of varied pathology and breast parenchyma density).
We proposed novel features and gaze analysis techniques, which help to encode discriminative pattern changes in positional and non-positional measures of eye events. These changes were shown to correlate with individual image readers' identity and experience level, mammographic case pathology and breast parenchyma density, and diagnostic decision.
Furthermore, our results suggest that a combination of machine intelligence and bio-sensing modalities can provide adequate predictive capability for the characterization of a mammographic case and image readers diagnostic performance. Lastly, features characterizing eye movements can be utilized for biometric identification purposes. These findings are impactful in real-time performance monitoring and personalized intelligent training and evaluation systems in screening mammography. Further, the developed algorithms are applicable in other application domains involving high-risk visual tasks. | en |
