The role and benefits of cognition and perception in medical imaging

In an era of unprecedented technological advances across the eld of medical imaging, it is critically important to understand the cognitive and perceptual functioning of the “human in the loop.” These are the clinicians who make the nal decisions on detection, diagnosis, and treatment. However, research on the cognitive and perceptual processes underlying clinician performance is chronically understudied.In September 2019, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) convened the “Cognition and Medical Image Perception Think Tank” in order to advance research on medical image perception 1 and cognition. The Think Tank brought radiologists and pathologists together with researchers working in medical image perception and adjacent elds of cognition and perception, along with representatives from interested federal government agencies (including NCI, National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering …