Visual Lobe Shape Characteristics of Experienced Industrial Inspectors and Inexperienced Subjects

This article reports research on visual lobe shape differences between experienced industrial inspectors and inexperienced students and the effects of years of inspection experience on lobe-shape characteristics. Comparison of the visual lobes of students and inspectors showed that lobe roundness of the inspectors was higher than that of the students. Also, marked improvement in lobe roundness and regularity for inspectors was evident in those inspectors who had relatively long experience in inspection work, indicating that daily inspection practice did not seem to be an effective way of improving lobe-shape characteristics. The increased lobe roundness level did not change, however, even when the inspectors had not performed an inspection job for a long period of time. This finding suggests that the improved lobe-roundness level could be maintained even without any follow-up inspection practice. It seems that intensive lobe training rather than inspection practice may be required to improve lobe-shape characteristics in a short time. No relationship was found between lobe-shape parameters and the ranked inspection performance of the inspectors, which indicated that, for the inspectors, better search performance may be related more to their better decision making rather than to their higher lobe-roundness level or inspection speed. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.