title: Mistaken first impressions: a response.
abstract: In this journal, Cummins et al reported an experiment that examined clinicians' predictions of causes of death from subjects' pre-morbid photographs. They found that clinicians performed at chance. The validity of two of their other conclusions are challenged. First, that clinicians routinely form impressions of how a person will die from their appearance. Second, that certain health professionals use common judgements to form these impressions. These claims are found to be based upon non-falsifiable hypothesis and inappropriate statistics; hence, an experiment employing pictures of feet (or any arbitrary personal detail) would have led the authors to the same conclusions.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, Cardiff University, UK.
authors.forename: M B
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Lewis
authors.forename: H D
authors.initials: HD
authors.lastname: Ellis
mesh_terms: D002423:Cause of Death; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D005145:Face; D005544:Forecasting / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D010781:Photography