Using Eye-tracking to get information on the skills acquisition by the radiology residents

This paper describes the possibility of monitoring the progress of knowledge and skills acquisition by the students of radiology. It is achieved by an analysis of a visual attention distribution patterns during image-based tasks solving. The concept is to use the eye-tracking data to recognize the way how the radiographic images are read by recognized experts, radiography residents involved in the training program, and untrained users who graduated from biomedical engineering. The results of research presented in this paper support the usefulness of earlier elaborated eye metrics, Visual Attention Time Product VATP, for skills measurement when using Electronic Medical Record for CT images evaluation. Moreover, it appears that it is possible to differentiate the level of residents skills in radiology structures recognition. Presented methodology can also be utilized in other areas where operator performs image related tasks.