Satisfaction of Search (SOS), a phenomenon studied by medical imaging and cognitive science researchers, refers to the diminished visual search performance for a target in a search image when a prior target has already been detected. Much has been learned about the SOS effect by studying its pervasiveness across many different types of medical images, including chest radiography, abdominal contrasts, and breast imaging. Much has also been learned about the SOS effect by using simplified search images with targets that take little training to detect (see Adamo et al., 2021 for a review). In this study, we used simplified 2D and segmented-3D search images and investigated whether observers’ search performance differs between these imaging types. Consistent with research in breast imaging, Adamo et al. (2018) found that when novice and experienced observers searched for a single target, they: 1) made fewer false positives, 2) improved their hit rates, and 3) spent longer searching in segmented-3D images compared to 2D images. Here, we replicated this pattern when observers searched for multiple targets. Importantly, we also found that the SOS effect was reduced in segmented-3D images compared to 2D images, suggesting that segmented-3D imaging can improve search performance for multiple targets (abnormalities) within medical imaging.
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