Expanding the basic science debate: the role of physics knowledge in interpreting clinical findings.

Current research suggests a role for biomedical knowledge in learning and retaining concepts related to medical diagnosis. However, learning may be influenced by other, non-biomedical knowledge. We explored this idea using an experimental design and examined the effects of causal knowledge on the learning, retention, and interpretation of medical information.

Categorizing patients in a forced-choice triad task: the integration of context in patient management.

Background: Studies of experts' problem-solving abilities have shown that experts can attend to the deep structure of a problem whereas novices attend to the surface structure. Although this effect has been replicated in many domains, there has been little investigation into such effects in medicine in general or patient management in particular.

Methodology/principal Findings: We designed a 10-item forced-choice triad task in which subjects chose which one of two hypothetical patients best matched a target patient.