To assess inter-observer variability, a random subset of 16 patients had VOIs defined on early and late scans by a separate operator blinded to the initial observer measurements and clinical data.
Between June 2009 and February 2011, women from the initial observer-blind, multicenter, randomized, controlled study (NCT00316693), were invited to participate in this open extended follow-up study (NCT00929526), which was conducted in 13 centers in Japan.
In this initial study observers were shown orthogonally oriented binocular grating targets that sinusoidally varied the intensity of the green phosphor to one eye and the red phosphor in the other.
At the time of the initial announcement, many observers believed the leading contender to be Pressaug, the German travel company on the verge of taking over Thomas Cook.
The mission has been roundly criticized by civilians who have gone so far as to parody the monitors as blind men, especially after the leader of the initial group of observers, Col. Ahmed Himmiche of Morocco, said last week that they would not head into the streets on Fridays, when big demonstrations often occur.
The agreement between the 5 observers' initial diagnosis and the FCD was 0.69, 0.41, 0.35, 0.28 and 0.11, respectively, strongly suggesting a leadership phenomenon.
In a follow-up analysis, we found that switching was more likely when there was a large difference between the actual dip angle (i.e., the correct answer) and observers' initial estimate.
Discounting observers' initial experience with the standard walker, during which the frontwards-facing percept usually dominates [17], over prolonged sessions the dominance towards the frontwards-facing percept is relatively small (58% of time on average).
All observers received initial training, which was supplemented with written instructions and practice every two weeks for the initial three months of the study.
