Staff Head, Neck & Endocrine
Dermatopathologist
Fellowship Project
Inattention blindness is a known and described phenomenon when humans fail to perceive an unexpected observation - in plain sight without visual deficits or obscurations, as a result of lack of attention. Surgical pathologists rely on visual evaluation of tissues for diagnosis: the focus of this project is to discern whether surgical pathologists may experience inattentional blindness when either (1) prompted by clinical history contrary to obvious histologic findings; or (2) required to assert a diagnosis in a time-sensitive period (limited timing to review).
We will utilize digital imaging to manipulate digital histologic slides, variably prompting pathologists with both accurate and inaccurate contexts, as well as adjusting the time period allowed for histologic evaluation before opinion, in order to "induce" this phenomenon.