Pattern Discrimination in Matching Chest Radiographs

Tests were designed to determine how well individuals can differentiate similar chest radiographs. These tests were given to 17 persons (radiologists, x-ray technologists, medical students, and secretaries). Each test contained a number of paired, dissimilar, and/or unique radiographs which were to be distinguished from one another or matched. The results suggest, that a radiologist does not have an innate advantage over untrained observers in pattern recognition. It is not known whether pattern-recognition tests are valuable in evaluating potential radiologists. A receiver operating characteristic curve is also described.