Characterizing missed identifications and errors in latent fingerprint comparisons using eye-tracking data

Abstract

Latent fingerprint examiners sometimes come to different conclusions when comparing fingerprints, and eye-gaze behavior may help explain these outcomes. missed identifications (missed IDs) are inconclusive, exclusion, or No Value determinations reached when the consensus of other examiners is an identification. To determine the relation between examiner behavior and missed IDs, we collected eye-gaze data from 121 latent print examiners as they completed a total 1444 difficult (latent-exemplar) comparisons. We extracted metrics from the gaze data that serve as proxies for underlying perceptual and cognitive capacities. We used these metrics to characterize potential mechanisms of missed IDs: Cursory Comparison and Mislocalization. We find that missed IDs are associated with shorter comparison times, fewer regions visited, and fewer attempted correspondences between the compared images. Latent print comparisons resulting in erroneous exclusions (a subset of missed IDs) are also more likely to have fixations in different regions and less accurate correspondence attempts than those comparisons resulting in identifications. We also use our derived metrics to describe one atypical examiner who made six erroneous identifications, four of which were on comparisons intended to be straightforward exclusions. The present work helps identify the degree to which missed IDs can be explained using eye-gaze behavior, and the extent to which missed IDs depend on cognitive and decision-making factors outside the domain of eye-tracking methodologies.