Impact of Radiologist Experience on Medical Image Quality Perception

Low quality medical images can lead to inaccurate interpretation and diagnosis. Therefore, it is important to understand radiologists' perception of distortions in visual content. In this study, 12 radiologists with different degrees of experience scored MRI images of varying levels of quality. Statistical analyses were conducted to reveal the influence of the radiologists' experience on their perception of image quality. In scoring images of joints, brain and liver, the highly experienced radiologists gave significantly higher scores than less experienced radiologists. In scoring images of fetus and spine, there were no significant differences in scores between groups with different degrees of experience. No radiologists had expertise in breast images, and their experience in other anatomical areas did not significantly affect scoring of breast images. Overall, highly experienced radiologists gave higher scores for images with edge ghosting, plain ghosting or white noise than radiologists with less experience. The findings will provide a reference for determining or improving image quality standards in clinical practice.