Cognitive bias of human brain called Brightness Induction may interfere with human ability to accurately score Her2 breast cancer biomarker

1. SMART IMAGING TECHNOLOGIES web-pathology.net
Why Human Brain
Cannot Accurately Score
Her2 Breast Cancer Biomarker

2. Brightness induction
Brightness induction is the modulation of the
perceived intensity of a region by the luminance
of surrounding regions and reveals fundamental
properties of neural organization in the visual
system of human brain.
This cognitive phenomenon has been extensively
studied by neuroscientists (Heinemann, 1972;
Yund & Armington, 1975).
R: 132
G: 132
B: 132
Brightness of two areas from the image on the
right is identical , however our brain perceives
brightness as different.
Logvinenko, Brightness Illusion

3. Her2 Biomarker Scoring
Brightness induction may pay a role in the
process of manual scoring of Her2 breast cancer
biomarker by the human observer.
Scoring involves cognitive perception of staining
intensity which is expressed via brightness of
image areas
Brightness Induction phenomenon may inhibit
ability of human observer to accurately assess
expression of Her2 biomarker in adjacent areas
Stained Her2 biomarker pattern on the right may
look consistent to human observer, even that it
includes areas with different brightness

4. Help with Machine Learning
Using machine learning to assist human expert
with scoring Her2 patterns may help eliminate
cognitive bias.
Deep Learning Visual Recognition Application can
learn levels of pattern expression and analyze them
quickly and objectively across entire slide. It can
highlight pattern differences for human expert and
provide quantitative statistical results for whole slide