Soft Copy Mammography Reading: Influence of Monitor Luminance & Tone Scale

The goal of this study was to evaluate reader performance viewing softcopy mammograms as display luminance and display tone scale are changed. The luminance study compared 80 ftL with 140 ftL, and the tone scale study compared a perceptually linearized tone scale with a non-perceptually linearized tone scale. Eye-position was recorded in both studies. Performance was better with the higher luminance display and with the perceptually linearized display, but in terms of diagnostic performance and visual search efficiency. The results suggest that it is very important to consider luminance and tone scale settings on a display monitor when viewing softcopy mammographic images.