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Seeing more may catch less

"This new study examined whether that concept also applies to airport-security scans, and it seems that it does. In fact, the researchers found, the problem may be worse among luggage screeners because they are under more time pressure than radiologists. They write that scrutinizing luggage for toothpaste and hair gel may come "potentially at the expense of finding additional targets which may be better concealed and less frequent, such as scissors, box cutters, or pocketknives."

Blog post

Researcher's web page

"Generalized ‘satisfaction of search’: Adverse influences on dual-target search accuracy" (PDF)

Bottomline: when TSA uses their genial-imager and finds money in your pocket, they would be less likely to find a blasting cap tucked into your privates.

I knew I should have applied for a grant to study this. Could have made some money. This was posted back in 2006:

Quote:

Originally Posted by ND Sol (Post 6835310)

My view is that the TSO's are just not focusing so much on this now. Heck, since the liquid ban they have not even found my "knife" and "lighter" though before they would cause a bag check about every fifth time. To me, we are asking TSO's to look for too many objects such that they miss the important ones. Focus should be on items that can be used to hijack or take down a plane - not a bottle of water or a pocket knife.

And others have said the same thing. Make the focus only on the truly dangerous items and security will be more effective.