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Special Abilities and Vulnerabilities in Forensic Expertise

The Fingerprint Sourcebook - Chapter 15


National Institute of Justice

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Introduction

Latent print examinations are complex perceptual and cognitive tasks. Examiners rely on their visual systems to find similarities in pairs of prints. They then must compare the degree of perceived similarity against that found in previous examinations, and ultimately must decide whether the commonalities found between prints (as well as regions of unexplainable disagreement) merit the conclusion that the prints either did or did not come from the same source (or are inconclusive). This process involves perception, similarity judgments, memory, and decision-making. These abilities vary among people and can be improved with training and experience. They are also subject to potential biases and external influences. This chapter will illustrate, based on knowledge from the visual and cognitive sciences, how an understanding of the human mind is relevant and critical to the fingerprint domain. Such an understanding clearly shows the unique cognitive processes and special abilities of experts, along with their vulnerabilities. This chapter begins with a quick overview of foundational findings in cognitive science and then discusses how these research areas have been extended to latent print examiners. Where possible, links are drawn between basic science findings and the relevant domains of training, selection, and procedures of latent print examinations.

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