Hall And Player Application

Question 1

What are the 5 strategies to reduce cognitive bias in forensics according to Dror

Answer 1

1. Educating detectives, judges, juries and the general public
2. Cognitive training
3. Sequential unmasking
4. Blind testing when verifying evidence
5. Falsification method

Question 2

What does training judges, juries and the general public include and why is it good?

Answer 2

By educating these groups about the strengths and weaknesses of forensic science can help people become more aware of its subjective nature and vulnerabilities to bias

Question 3

What is cognitive training and how is it useful?

Answer 3

It’s training forensic examiners to acknowledge and minimise bias. This is important because cognitive bias can not be switched off by will power or awareness themselves.

Question 4

What is sequential unmasking and why is it useful?

Answer 4

It’s a method of controlling the examiners bias by ensuring that irrelevant information that could bias their decision is filtered out of the analytical process. This would mean that the examiner would focus more on the bottom- up processing of the evidence, as well being more objective as it would be following a form of blind testing

Question 5

What is blind testing when verifying evidence and how does it help?

Answer 5

When verification happens, the verifier should not be aware of the initial conclusions or the initial examiner. The examiner should not be able to chose the verifier, to avoid conformity bias. This is to check the conclusions are reliable

Question 6

What is the falsification method and how is it useful?

Answer 6

Looking for evidence against a match to provide a more scientific approach to the analysis of forensic evidence