title: Expertise in fingerprint identification.
abstract: Although fingerprint experts have presented evidence in criminal courts for more than a century, there have been few scientific investigations of the human capacity to discriminate these patterns. A recent latent print matching experiment shows that qualified, court-practicing fingerprint experts are exceedingly accurate (and more conservative) compared with novices, but they do make errors. Here, a rationale for the design of this experiment is provided. We argue that fidelity, generalizability, and control must be balanced to answer important research questions; that the proficiency and competence of fingerprint examiners are best determined when experiments include highly similar print pairs, in a signal detection paradigm, where the ground truth is known; and that inferring from this experiment the statement "The error rate of fingerprint identification is 0.68%" would be unjustified. In closing, the ramifications of these findings for the future psychological study of forensic expertise and the implications for expert testimony and public policy are considered.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, 4072, Australia; Queensland Research Laboratory, National Information and Communications Technology Australia, St Lucia, QLD, 4072, Australia.
authors.forename: Matthew B
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Thompson
authors.forename: Jason M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Tangen
authors.forename: Duncan J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: McCarthy
mesh_terms: D003657:Decision Making; D003878:Dermatoglyphics; D005104:Expert Testimony / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D015588:Observer Variation; D011361:Professional Competence; D015203:Reproducibility of Results
keywords: decision making; expertise; fingerprints; forensic science; judgment; law; policy; testimony