Exploring the influence of attention for whole-image mammogram classification

Marc Berghouse, George Bebis, Alireza Tavakkoli

Abstract: Highlights•Attention generally improves mammogram classification.•Newer attention methods don't consistently perform better.•Improvements due to attention depend on model architecture/complexity and characteristics of the image data.•Attention doesn't necessarily improve focus on the region of interest.•CNNs outperform transformers for high resolution mammogram classification.