Discrimination of complex histopathological tumour profiles by experienced and inexperienced observers

One of the tasks that pathologists routinely perform in diagnosis is the assessment of complexity of shape or texture of microscopic images. Because some of these complex patterns can be approximated in terms of fractal structures, it is important to understand how fractal structures are perceived by pathologists, and whether pathologists use specific perceptual strategies to quantify such patterns. Knowledge about this could be advantageous for either producing specific training programmes to increase complexity discrimination or to utilise more unbiased and quantitative imaging methodologies in histopathology. We have previously demonstrated that non-expert observers with high abilities in simultaneous information processing were best at the task of discriminating the fractal dimension of self-similar computer-generated curves. Here we compare the performance of experienced and inexperienced observers in a similar task of discriminating epithelial profiles. The results suggest that there are no differences between experienced and inexperienced observers in this task of complex profile discrimination.