The effects of cognitive bias, examiner expertise, and stimulus material on forensic evidence analysis

Abstract

Forensic examiners have come under scrutiny due to high-profile exonerations, highlighting the consequences that contextual bias can have on investigations. Researchers have proposed solutions to reduce the effects of bias including blind testing and redacting task-irrelevant information. Practitioners have concerns over the limitations of some of this research that uses untrained students to examine complex pieces of forensic evidence (e.g., fingerprints) (1; but see 2 for studies including trained experts and/or actual casework). This study sought to (a) examine the effect of contextual bias on examiners' evaluation of forensic evidence by varying the amount of pre-comparison information available to participants, (b) compare student and expert examiners' performance and their vulnerability to contextual bias, and (c) examine the effects of contextual bias on examiners' evaluation of different types of forensic evidence. Expert fingerprint examiners and student participants were presented with varying amounts of pre-comparison case information and compared matching and non-matching fingerprint and footwear impression evidence. Results suggest no effects of blinding examiners from case information or redacting task-irrelevant information. As expected, expert fingerprint examiners were more likely to correctly identify matching fingerprints and correctly exclude non-matching fingerprints than students. However, expert fingerprint examiners were no better than student participants at comparing footwear impression evidence. These findings suggest that sample, stimulus selection, and discipline-specific training matter when investigating bias in forensic decision making. These findings suggest caution when using forensic stimuli with student samples to investigate forensic decision-making and highlight the need for more research on redaction procedures.