Thursday, October 13, 2022

Eyeballing as a system 1 (intuitive medical cognition), heuristic tool


A few compilations on system 1 experiential learning and eyeballing as a system 1 (intuitive medical cognition) tool below :


1) Eyeballing: the use of visual appearance to diagnose ‘sick.

To quote, 

"Experienced emergency physicians are able to visually assess patients rapidly and predict disposition in a very short time, albeit with fair reliability and lower accuracy than reported previously. Subjectively, they reported that the majority of decisions were on the side of ‘knew immediately’, consistent with the application of System 1 processing."

Sibbald  M, Sherbino  J, Preyra  I, Coffin-Simpson  T, Norman  G, Monteiro  S.  Eyeballing: the use of visual appearance to diagnose ‘sick.’  Med Educ. 2017;51(11):1138-1145. doi:10.1111/medu.13396

2)

A perspective on judgment and choice: mapping bounded rationality

Daniel Kahneman. Am Psychol. 2003 Sep.


Early studies of intuitive judgment and decision making conducted with the late Amos Tversky are reviewed in the context of two related concepts: an analysis of accessibility, the ease with which thoughts come to mind; a distinction between effortless intuition and deliberate reasoning. Intuitive thoughts, like percepts, are highly accessible. Determinants and consequences of accessibility help explain the central results of prospect theory, framing effects, the heuristic process of attribute substitution, and the characteristic biases that result from the substitution of nonextensional for extensional attributes. Variations in the accessibility of rules explain the occasional corrections of intuitive judgments. The study of biases is compatible with a view of intuitive thinking and decision making as generally skilled and successful.

Citation : Kahneman D. A perspective on judgment and choice: mapping bounded rationality. Am Psychol. 2003 Sep;58(9):697-720. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.58.9.697. PMID: 14584987.

3)

Is the “beach position” of value during the “eyeball” assessment of patients?


To quote, "The rapid identification at low cost of patients at risk is particularly important in emergency departments in low- and middle-income countries, which may lack experienced emergency healthcare providers and cannot afford to waste scarce resources [ 
[1] 
]. Within seconds some clinicians use fast System 1 thinking to determine if a patient is sick or not [ 
[2] 
], a judgement often based on the patient's facial expression and their behaviour [ 
[3] 
]. Supine emergency room patients with crossed ankles, crossed hands behind the neck, or folded hands over the upper abdomen, as if they were relaxing on a beach, have been reported to be highly unlikely to have any acute critical condition"

Alfred Lumala, John Kellett, Jelmer Alsma, Christian H Nickel, Is the “beach position” of value during the “eyeball” assessment of patients?, European Journal of Internal Medicine, 10.1016/j.ejim.2021.02.01488, (139-140), (2021).

4) Experiential knowledge in clinical medicine: use and justification

To quote, 

"Clinicians' primary experience tends to be dismissed by EBM as unsystematic or anecdotal, a source of bias rather than knowledge, never serving as the "best" evidence to support a clinical decision. The position that clinical expertise is necessary but that primary experience is untrustworthy in clinical decision-making is epistemically incoherent. Here we argue for the value and utility of knowledge gained from primary experience for the practice of medicine. Primary experience provides knowledge necessary to diagnose, treat, and assess response in individual patients. Hierarchies of evidence, when advanced as guides for clinical decisions, mistake the relationship between propositional and experiential knowledge. We argue that primary experience represents a kind of medical knowledge distinct from the propositional knowledge produced by clinical research, both of which are crucial to determining the best diagnosis and course of action for particular patients."

Mark R. Tonelli, Devora Shapiro, Experiential knowledge in clinical medicine: use and justification, Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, 10.1007/s11017-020-09521-041, 2-3, (67-82), (2020).
Wikipedia : heuristic (/hjʊˈrɪstɪk/; from Ancient Greek εὑρίσκω (heurískō) 'I find, discover'), or heuristic technique, is any approach to problem solving or self-discovery that employs a practical method that is not guaranteed to be optimal, perfect, or rational, but is nevertheless sufficient for reaching an immediate, short-term goal or approximation. Where finding an optimal solution is impossible or impractical, heuristic methods can be used to speed up the process of finding a satisfactory solution. Heuristics can be mental shortcuts that ease the cognitive load of making a decision.[1][2]

Examples that employ heuristics include using trial and error, a rule of thumb or an educated guess.

Heuristics are the strategies derived from previous experiences with similar problems. These strategies depend on using readily accessible, though loosely applicable, information to control problem solving in human beings, machines and abstract issues.[3][4] When an individual applies a heuristic in practice, it generally performs as expected. However it can alternatively create systematic errors.

Another wiki on heuristic psychology below :

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic_(psychology)

Heuristics is the process by which humans use mental short cuts to arrive at decisions. Heuristics are simple strategies that humans, animals,[1][2][3] organizations,[4] and even machines[5] use to quickly form judgmentsmake decisions, and find solutions to complex problems. Often this involves focusing on the most relevant aspects of a problem or situation to formulate a solution.[6][7][8][9] While heuristic processes are used to find the answers and solutions that are most likely to work or be correct, they are not always right or the most accurate.[10] Judgments and decisions based on heuristics are simply good enough to satisfy a pressing need in situations of uncertainty, where information is incomplete.[11] In that sense they can differ from answers given by logic and probability.

The economist and cognitive psychologist Herbert A. Simon introduced the concept of heuristics in the 1950s, suggesting there were limitations to rational decision making. In the 1970s, psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman added to the field with their research on cognitive bias. It was their work that introduced specific heuristic models, a field which has only expanded since


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