Adaptation effects on breast density judgements with blended stimuli

Several large clinical studies have demonstrated sequential effects on batch reading of screening breast images, typically showing improved performance (lower recall rate, equal detection rate) as a reader progresses through a batch of cases. As an examination of visual adaptation as a potential mechanism for these effects, we evaluate breast density judgements under different adaptation states. We find behavior that is consistent with adaptation in the sense that adaptation to fatty images makes denser images look more dense, and vice-versa.