Area 2 - forensic

Question 1

what is Area 2

Answer 1

motivating factors and bias in the collection and processing of evidence

Question 2

what are we interested in as part of collection of evidence

Answer 2

the validity and reliability of fingerprint analysis

Question 3

what area is this under

Answer 3

biological- fingerprints

Question 4

what is a patent fingerprint

Answer 4

visible to the naked eye- often made in blood, ink, paint- doesn’t take much technical collection

Question 5

what is a latent fingerprint

Answer 5

not visible so requires use of specialist fingerprint powder, chemical reagents or light sources transferred onto surface through bodies natural oils and sweat

Question 6

what is bottom-up processing

Answer 6

data driven from environment- what you see is what you get
sensation input-senses (eyes)
perception- processing (brain)
e.g goal keepers needing to react in situation, not predict

Question 7

what is top down processing

Answer 7

what you expect to see- what enters your eyes is translated by cognition prior to experience
e.g. miss reading an exam question because you predict what the question is

Question 8

how is bottom up processing done when analysing fingerprints

Answer 8

look at specific ridges (curves in fingerprint) that you can literally see - objective- more on patent print

Question 9

how is top down processing used when analysing fingerprints

Answer 9

contextual information- prior knowlege to analyse to make predictions- more subjective- latent fingerprint

Question 10

what is the case of Brandon Mayfield

Answer 10

US citizen who had recently converted to Muslim was accused of bombing Madrid train in 2004- after 9/11
latent finger print taken form bag of bomb- multiple experts analysed
fingerprint also matched to Ouhane Daoud
Mayfield had not left US according to passport but was still accused and jailed- FBI wanted answers

Question 11

what did Kassin suggest

Answer 11

that forensic evidence is infallible proved by the Mayfield case and many others

Question 12

what did Hampikian find

Answer 12

called it the ‘genetics of innocence’- found that several types of forensic science testimony had been found to have convicted innocent individuals:
e.g. 38% incorrect blood analysis

Question 13

what is one of the strongest motivation factors

Answer 13

sense of reward experts feel when competing their part of investigation leading to case being solved.

Question 14

who research the motivating factor of emotional context

Answer 14

Charlton- investigated presence of emotions in fingerprint examination would influence analysis
Dror- associated emotional content with crime fingerprints are from

Question 15

what was the method and sample of Charlton

Answer 15

semi-structured interview where 13 experienced fingerprint experts asked questions like how they feel about succeeding in matching prints of murderer of 12 year old girl

Question 16

what did Charlton find

Answer 16

5 main themes associated with emotion- reward of job satisfaction- pride, satisfaction of catching them, emotional needs for closure, satisfaction of working with long running cases, emotions linked to making mistakes and finding matches.

Question 17

what did he conclude

Answer 17

fingerprint experts are not only emotionally motivated to achieve results for themselves, police/ wider society but also physiological factors that may lead to erroneous conclusions depending if motivation is strong enough

Question 18

what was the method/ sample of Dror

Answer 18

experimental method, 27 volunteers from university were assigned to IV’S of high/low emotional context (experienced?) operationalised by type of crime burglary/murder - photos and stories where used to reinforce context

Question 19

what was the procedure of Dror

Answer 19

had to match 48 ambiguous prints ( top down) and 48 non-ambiguous (bottom up)- description and photos of crime given prior - then pressed same of different for each pair

Question 20

what were the findings of Dror

Answer 20

non-ambiguous (patent/bottom up) prints were unaffected by emotional context, ambiguous pairs were influenced by emotional context (top down /latent)- can we trust it wasn’t just their lack of experience?

Question 21

who investigated the motivating factor of cognitive closure

Answer 21

Kruglanski - need for definite closure

Question 22

what did Kruglanski say police did

Answer 22

looked to make firm identification so their part was complete

Question 23

what did Kruglanski find

Answer 23

when the need for cognitive closure is high, quicker judgements are made with more confidence, however when need is low a large number of possibilities are made and better decision making occurs

Question 24

what evidence did he have that would support this

Answer 24

Brandon Mayfield- high profile case that killed hundreds of innocent people- needed to look like they are sorting it and finding someone so made quick judgement it was Brandon Mayfield due to him recently converting to Muslim even though he hadn’t left the US according to passport and matched fingerprints with another guy.

Question 25

what did Kruglanski conclude

Answer 25

high profile cases their is a strong need for cognitive closure and contextual information about case would lead to confident yet faulty fingerprint analysis

Question 26

what did Kahneman

Answer 26

humans are not nearly as rational in thinking as believed, when people process information they make systematic and unintentional errors in judgement known as cognitive bias

Question 27

what is a contextual bias

Answer 27

information about event can influence fingerprint analysis - if they have knowledge about individual this becomes focus on the individual not the fingerprint.

Question 28

what is confirmational bias

Answer 28

looks for evidence to support pre-existing beliefs - fingerprint analysis needs to be verified and verifier may have prior knowledge that can expose experts to bias

Question 29

what is the background of Hall and Player

Answer 29

Dror- wanted to see if certain crimes emotional context influences fingerprint experts not university students

Question 30

what is the sample of Pt 1 of H+P

Answer 30

70 self-selected fingerprint experts from New Scotland Yark (London Police Met) average of 11 years but no less than 3 months and some no longer fingerprint experts

Question 31

method of P1 H+P

Answer 31

Field exp- in their natural environment
IV1- low emotional context-forgery
IV2- high emotional context- murder
DV1- print match/unmatched/ insufficient etc.
DV2- whether they read crime report prior
DV3-whether they felt it affected their analysis AND would they be confident in court

Question 32

Procedure of H+P

Answer 32

given envelope of right forefinger and asked to match on standardised 10 print form
post experiment questions- demographic information about experience/if they have presented information in court before / had it influenced their decision making?

Question 33

what are the findings of H+P

Answer 33

57/70 read report prior- 30 form high emotion
and half of them said they felt affected
only 6% in low emotion

Question 34

what’s meant by the strategy ACE-V

Answer 34

analysis, comparison, evaluation, verification

Question 35

explain each stage of ACE-V

Answer 35

analysis- observe ridge patterns under microscope assessing causes of distortion and affect on the clarity of print
comparison- each inked print examined and compared detail
on latent print
evaluation- two prints examined side by side finding features in unknown print in known print- features determined if they are within tolerance for level of clarity that exists in image
verification- all positive options must be verified by second qualified expert - who must repeat process blind

Question 36

explain how linear sequencing strategy works

Answer 36

should work in linear fashion - any info about case is ‘unmasked’ as late as possible in analysis

Question 37

what psychologist demonstrated this strategy works

Answer 37

Dror- cost-benefit analysis if data will benefit outcome of experts analysis

Question 38

explain the strategy of educating and training forensic experts

Answer 38

explain how open to cognitive bias fingerprint analysis is
how forensic evidence isn’t always 100%
how motivating factors can provide a basis for errors in forensic evidence
HOW? leaflet to juries? part of police training? regular checks on experts?