Effects of clinical case priming on the activation of encapsulated knowledge: Differences between medical experts and subexperts.

Abstract

Addressed the role of encapsulated knowledge in clinical case representations by advanced medical students (MEDs), medical subexperts (SUBs; expert physicians diagnosing clinical cases outside their specialty), and expert (EXP) physicians. In Exp 1 used 4th-yr MEDs, SUBs from 6 different specialties, and internists (EXPs), who studied 2 clinical cases within the domain of internal medicine. Ss evaluated 3 types of medical items: inferred encapsulating iterms, literally stated signs and symptoms, and filler items. EXPs, in contrast to both other groups, were faster and more accurate in evaluating the relatedness of the types of items. The EXPs' performance on encapsulating items led to fast and accurate responses. Exp 2 involved 4th-yr MEDs, SUBs, and cardiologists (EXPs) who studied a text containing the most important clinical manisfestations associated with congestive heart failure. Ss indicated as fast as possible whether biomedical, encapsulating, and filler items were related to the texts. EXPs outperformed MEDs and SUBs on the different item types. Encapsulating items led to the fastest and most accurate responses. Findings show that encapsulated knowledge plays an important role in the EXP physicians' clinical case representations within and outside their specialty. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)