Expert visual diagnostics: systematic convergence or random approach? S Starke, T Pfau, S A May |
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Royal Veterinary College, CSS, University of London, United Kingdom
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| Horses can not communicate symptoms through language, so veterinarians have to detect complaints by other means. ‘Lameness’ is the most common problem in horses. In order to determine the presence of lameness and locate the affected leg, a veterinarian will watch for asymmetry of movement. Unfortunately, visual examination is inherently prone to disagreement particularly for subtle lameness, confounding reliable diagnosis. Especially for trot on the circle there is currently no accepted evaluation protocol. Hence, we wondered whether expert veterinarians converge on a similar visual assessment strategy in the absence of strict rules. An eyetracker (Tobii T60) recorded gaze data for 24 experts in equine lameness examination. Participants evaluated videos of 14 horses trotting in various conditions. Gaze data were manually mapped onto 16 body regions of each horse. Results showed pronounced variation across experts in the cumulative percentage viewing time allocated to each body region. Further, there was considerable variation in the number of regional revisits, the frequency of regional switches and the time rested per visit. No discernible systematic scanning approach was found, although individuals showed preferences for certain scan paths. We conclude that the absence of diagnostic rules can lead to development of greatly differing approaches. |
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