The US Department of Justice stumbles on visual perception

Abstract

A large and highly valuable category of forensic evidence consists of patterned impressions created during the perpetration of a crime. These crime scene artifacts, such as fingerprints or tire tracks, offer visual sensory information that is assessed by trained human observers and compared to sensory experiences elicited by model patterns that would have been produced under a hypothesized set of conditions. By means of this “forensic feature comparison,” the observer makes a judgment about whether the evidence and the model are sufficiently similar to support common origin. In light of documented failures of this approach, significant concerns have been raised about its scientific validity. In response to these concerns, the US Department of Justice has made assertions about how forensic examiners perform feature comparison tasks that are not consistent with modern scientific understanding of the processes of sensation and perception. Clarification of these processes highlights new ways of thinking about and improving the accuracy of forensic feature comparison and underscores the vital role of science in achieving justice.