Neuroscience
Itiel Dror and colleagues at Southampton University recruited five fingerprint experts with 85 years of experience between them, and asked them to analyse a pair of fingerprints that, unbeknown to them, they had previously declared as matching in a real-life criminal case five years earlier.
Crucially, the researchers misled the experts, telling them that the pair of prints – including one from the scene of the crime, and one from a suspect – were the same pair that had led to the wrongful arrest of an innocent Muslim as the Madrid bomber. In this context, and even though they were allowed to use their usual lab facilities, only one of the experts now declared the two prints as a match. Three said the prints didn’t match, and one said a definite decision couldn’t be made.
“This study shows that fingerprint identification decisions of experts are vulnerable to irrelevant and misleading contextual influences”, the researchers said. “Further research should use different and more subtle manipulations to examine in greater depth when such factors affect performance and render the experts vulnerable to misjudgements”.
_________________________________
Dror, I.E., Charlton, D. & Peron, A.E. (2006). Contextual information renders experts vulnerable to making erroneous identifications. Forensic Science International, 156, 74-78.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
Link to lead researcher Dr. Dror talking on BBC's Newsnight programme.
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Neuroscience
...And how fingerprint experts are biased by context
Itiel Dror and colleagues at Southampton University recruited five fingerprint experts with 85 years of experience between them, and asked them to analyse a pair of fingerprints that, unbeknown to them, they had previously declared as matching in a real-life criminal case five years earlier.Crucially, the researchers misled the experts, telling them that the pair of prints – including one from the scene of the crime, and one from a suspect – were the same pair that had led to the wrongful arrest of an innocent Muslim as the Madrid bomber. In this context, and even though they were allowed to use their usual lab facilities, only one of the experts now declared the two prints as a match. Three said the prints didn’t match, and one said a definite decision couldn’t be made.
“This study shows that fingerprint identification decisions of experts are vulnerable to irrelevant and misleading contextual influences”, the researchers said. “Further research should use different and more subtle manipulations to examine in greater depth when such factors affect performance and render the experts vulnerable to misjudgements”.
_________________________________
Dror, I.E., Charlton, D. & Peron, A.E. (2006). Contextual information renders experts vulnerable to making erroneous identifications. Forensic Science International, 156, 74-78.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
Link to lead researcher Dr. Dror talking on BBC's Newsnight programme.
- Want To Predict A Footie Result? Don't Even Think About It
Imagine you've just paid an expert good money for their verdict and they say to you: "Can you hang on a couple of minutes whilst I don't think about this". You'd be forgiven for thinking they've gone silly. They may have. But another possibility...
- Can Psychologists Tell Jurors Anything They Don't Know Already?
Some judges in America have allowed the introduction of psychologists in court to help jurors understand eye-witness suggestibility - that is, how prone their memory is to distortion, for example by misleading questioning. But other judges have refused...
- Are Mental Disorders Real?
How do the public view mental disorders? Do they see them as real entities with some kind of essence, or do they see them as the invention of human culture? And how does their take differ from that of mental health professionals? To find out, Woo-kyoung...
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Um....yeah. Sure. Don't Trust Experts' Forecasts, Study Suggests Science Daily — A study about predicting the outcome of actual conflicts found that the forecasts of experts who use their unaided judgment are little better than those of novices,...
- Potiga (ezogabine)
From FierceBiotech FDA panel backs new epilepsy drug from GSK, Valeant August 12, 2010 — 7:41am ET By John Carroll "GlaxoSmithKline and Valeant got a solid endorsement for their new epilepsy drug Potiga (ezogabine) from the FDA's panel of experts,...