Visual contrast enhancement with a patterned overlay

A dot-screen pattern was devised and superimposed on computed tomography images to improve contrast at a viewbox. The phenomenon is believed to be probably related to lateral inhibition. To evaluate its usefulness, the device was used on 12 images (eight showed metastatic liver lesions, and four were normal); each image was viewed without the device by ten observers. Three control images were viewed a second time without the device. The remaining nine images were viewed a second time with the device. The overlay improved diagnostic performance in nine observers. Sensitivity improved by 12%, and confidence in true-positive findings increased by 41.6%. Forty-five percent of false-negative findings were converted to true positive with the use of the overlay.