ORCID Profile
0000-0002-0649-2566
Current Organisation
University of Queensland
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Research Topics
In Research Link Australia (RLA), "Research Topics" refer to ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes. These topics are either sourced from ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes listed in researchers' related grants or generated by a large language model (LLM) based on their publications.
Top 5 Research Topics
ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)
Psychology | Cognitive Science | Learning, Memory, Cognition And Language | Police Administration, Procedures and Practice | Criminal Law and Procedure | Social And Community Psychology | Marketing And Market Research | Sensory Processes, Perception and Performance | Forensic Psychology | Decision Making
ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)
Expanding Knowledge in Psychology and Cognitive Sciences | Behavioural and cognitive sciences | Health education and promotion | Criminal Justice |
Related Links
Publications
An expert-novice comparison of feature choice
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 12-03-2020
Abstract: Perceptual experts have learned to rapidly and accurately perceive the structural regularities that define categories and identities within a domain. They extract important features and their relations more efficiently than novices. We used fingerprint examination to investigate expert-novice differences in feature choice. On each fingerprint within our set, experts and novices selected one feature they thought was most useful for distinguishing a particular print and one feature they thought was least useful. We found that experts and novices often differed in the features they chose, and experts tended to agree more with each other. However, any such expert-novice difference appeared to depend on the image at hand, typically emerging when salient or more conspicuous features of a fingerprint were unclear. We suggest that perceptual training ought to direct attention to useful features with the understanding that what is useful may change depending on the clarity of the stimuli.
The emergence of perceptual expertise with fingerprints over time.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 12-2017
DOI: 10.1037/H0101814
The Nature of Expertise in Fingerprint Matching: Experts Can Do a Lot with a Little
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 17-12-2014
The dark side of Eureka: Artificially induced Aha moments make facts feel true
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 12-03-2018
Abstract: Some ideas that we have feel mundane, but others are imbued with a sense of profundity. We propose that Aha! moments make an idea feel more true or valuable in order to aid quick and efficient decision-making, akin to a heuristic. To demonstrate where the heuristic may incur errors, we hypothesized that facts would appear more true if they were artificially accompanied by an Aha! moment elicited using an anagram task. In a preregistered experiment, we found that participants (n = 300) provided higher truth ratings for statements accompanied by solved anagrams even if the facts were false, and the effect was particularly pronounced when participants reported an Aha! experience (d = .629). Recent work suggests that feelings of insight usually accompany correct ideas. However, here we show that feelings of insight can be overgeneralized and bias how true an idea or fact appears, simply if it occurs in the temporal ‘neighbourhood’ of an Aha! moment. We raise the possibility that feelings of insight, epiphanies, and Aha! moments have a dark side, and discuss some circumstances where they may even inspire false beliefs and delusions, with potential clinical importance.
A signal detection analysis of contingency data
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 05-2005
DOI: 10.3758/BF03196067
Abstract: There are many psychological tasks that involve the pairing of binary variables. The various tasks used often address different questions and are motivated by different theoretical issues and traditions. Upon closer examination, however, the tasks are remarkably similar in structure. In the present paper, we examine two such tasks, the contingency judgment task and the signal detection task, and we apply a signal detection analysis to contingency judgment data. We suggest that the signal detection analysis provides a novel interpretation of a well-established but poorly understood phenomenon of contingency judgments--the outcome-density effect.
The influence of event order on the narratives jurors construct and tell in cases of rape
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 11-08-2022
How low can you go? Detecting style in extremely low resolution images
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 28-06-2018
Abstract: Humans can see through the complexity of scenes, faces, and objects by quickly extracting their redundant low-spatial and low-dimensional global properties, or their style. It remains unclear, however, whether semantic coding is necessary, or whether visual stylistic information is sufficient, for people to recognize and discriminate complex images and categories. In two experiments, we systematically reduce the resolution of hundreds of unique paintings, birds, and faces, and test people’s ability to discriminate and recognize them. We show that the stylistic information retained at extremely low image resolutions is sufficient for visual recognition of images, and visual discrimination of categories. Averaging over the three domains, people were able to reliably recognize images reduced down to a single pixel, with large differences from chance discriminability across eight different image resolutions. People were also able to discriminate categories substantially above chance with an image resolution as low as 2×2 pixels. We situate our findings in the context of contemporary computational accounts of visual recognition, and contend that explicit encoding of the local features in the image, or knowledge of the semantic category, is not necessary for recognizing and distinguishing complex visual stimuli.
Collective Intelligence in Fingerprint Analysis
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 05-11-2019
Abstract: When a fingerprint is located at a crime scene, a human examiner is counted upon to manually compare this print to those stored in a database. Several experiments have now shown that these professional analysts are highly accurate, but not infallible, much like other fields that involve high-stakes decision making. One method to offset mistakes in these safety-critical domains is to distribute these important decisions to groups of raters who independently assess the same information. This redundancy in the system allows it to continue operating effectively even in the face of rare and random errors. Here, we extend this “wisdom of crowds” approach to fingerprint analysis by comparing the performance of in iduals to crowds of professional analysts. We replicate the previous findings that in idual experts greatly outperform in idual novices, particularly in their false positive rate, but they do make mistakes. When we pool the decisions of small groups of experts by selecting the decision of the majority, however, their false positive rate decreases by up to 8% and their false negative rate decreases by up to 12%. Pooling the decisions of novices results in a similar drop in false negatives, but increases their false positive rate by up to 11%. Aggregating people’s judgements by selecting the majority decision performs better than selecting the decision of the most confident or the most experienced rater. Our results show that combining independent judgements from small groups of fingerprint analysts can improve their performance and prevent these mistakes from entering courts.
Honeybees can discriminate between Monet and Picasso paintings
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 18-10-2012
DOI: 10.1007/S00359-012-0767-5
Abstract: Honeybees (Apis mellifera) have remarkable visual learning and discrimination abilities that extend beyond learning simple colours, shapes or patterns. They can discriminate landscape scenes, types of flowers, and even human faces. This suggests that in spite of their small brain, honeybees have a highly developed capacity for processing complex visual information, comparable in many respects to vertebrates. Here, we investigated whether this capacity extends to complex images that humans distinguish on the basis of artistic style: Impressionist paintings by Monet and Cubist paintings by Picasso. We show that honeybees learned to simultaneously discriminate between five different Monet and Picasso paintings, and that they do not rely on luminance, colour, or spatial frequency information for discrimination. When presented with novel paintings of the same style, the bees even demonstrated some ability to generalize. This suggests that honeybees are able to discriminate Monet paintings from Picasso ones by extracting and learning the characteristic visual information inherent in each painting style. Our study further suggests that discrimination of artistic styles is not a higher cognitive function that is unique to humans, but simply due to the capacity of animals-from insects to humans-to extract and categorize the visual characteristics of complex images.
Promoting Open Science: A Holistic Approach to Changing Behaviour
Publisher: University of California Press
Date: 2021
Abstract: In this article, we provide a toolbox of recommendations and resources for those aspiring to promote the uptake of open scientific practices. Open Science encompasses a range of behaviours that aim to improve the transparency of scientific research. This paper is ided into seven sections, each devoted to different groups or institutions in the research ecosystem: colleagues, students, departments and faculties, universities, academic libraries, journals, and funders. We describe the behavioural influences and incentives for each of these stakeholders as well as changes they can make to foster Open Science. Our primary goal, however, is to suggest actions that researchers can take to promote these behaviours, inspired by simple principles of behaviour change: make it easy, social, and attractive. In isolation, a small shift in one person’s behaviour may appear to make little difference, but when combined, many shifts can radically alter shared norms and culture. We offer this toolbox to assist in iduals and institutions in cultivating a more open research culture.
Contextual bias and cross-contamination in the forensic sciences: The corrosive implications for investigations, plea bargains, trials and appeals
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 16-10-2014
DOI: 10.1093/LPR/MGU018
Diagnostic information produces better calibrated judgments about forensic comparison evidence than likelihood ratios
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 29-08-2022
Abstract: Forensic expert testimony is slowly starting to reflect the uncertain nature of forensic science, but the way experts should express the uncertainty of their decisions is under debate. Here we compare the likelihood model approach to a diagnostic approach — which provides information about performance and error rates — to determine which produces a more calibrated understanding and evaluation of the evidence. In Experiment 1 (N = 738), participants were more sensitive to differences in evidence strength when the evidence was expressed as diagnostic information than as a likelihood ratio, as predicted. In Experiment 2 (N = 499), however, when provided with both diagnostic information and a likelihood ratio, participants tended to discount the presence of the likelihood ratio in favour of the diagnostic information, which we did not predict. Together, these results suggest that providing fact-finders with diagnostic information might aid their understanding and evaluation of forensic evidence.
Guided by the rape schema: the influence of event order on how jurors evaluate the victim’s testimony in cases of rape
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 29-09-2021
A guide to interpreting forensic testimony: scientific approaches to fingerprint evidence
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 20-08-2013
DOI: 10.1093/LPR/MGT011
Temporal contiguity and contingency judgments: A Pavlovian analogue
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 07-2003
DOI: 10.1007/BF02688855
Specific Versus Varied Practice in Perceptual Expertise Training
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 23-08-2022
Abstract: We used a longitudinal randomised control experiment to compare the effect of specific practice (training on one form of a task) and varied practice (training on various forms of a task) on perceptual learning and transfer. Participants practiced a visual search task for ten hours over two- to four-weeks. The specific practice group searched for features only in fingerprints during each session whereas the varied practice group searched for features in five different image categories. Both groups were tested on a series of tasks at four time points: before training, midway through training, immediately after training ended, and six- to eight-weeks later. The specific group improved more during training and demonstrated greater pre-post performance gains than the varied group on a visual search task with untrained fingerprint images. Both groups improved equally on a visual search task with an untrained image category, but only the specific group’s performance dropped significantly when tested several weeks later. Finally, both groups improved equally on a series of untrained fingerprint tasks. Practice with respect to single category (versus many) instils better near transfer, but category-specific and category-general visual search training appear equally effective for developing task-general expertise.
Visual Kin Recognition and Family Resemblance in Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes).
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 2004
The role of interest and images in slideware presentations
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2011
On the Preliminary Psychophysics of Fingerprint Identification
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 05-2009
DOI: 10.1080/17470210802372987
Abstract: For a century, the matching of images of fingerprints has been used for forensic identification. Despite that history, there have been no published, peer-reviewed studies directly examining the extent to which people can correctly match fingerprints to one another. The results of three experiments using naïve undergraduates to match images of fingerprints are reported. The results demonstrate that people can identify fingerprints quite well, and that matching accuracy can vary as a function of both source finger type and image similarity.
New Directions in Human Associative Learning
Publisher: Psychology Press
Date: 15-01-2005
The effects of victim testimony order and judicial education on juror decision-making in trials for rape
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 28-07-2022
Diagnostic information produces better-calibrated judgments about forensic comparison evidence than likelihood ratios.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 09-2023
DOI: 10.1037/MAC0000062
Judging relationships between events: How do we do it?
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 03-2005
DOI: 10.1037/H0087456
Abstract: A decade ago, Allan (1993) concluded that associative models provided the best account of data generated in tasks that require human observers to judge the relationship between binary events. In the intervening years, new data have been reported that provide evidence for higher-order processes. Some have argued that these new data pose a serious threat to the viability of the associative account. The purpose of the present paper is to review this evidence and to assess the severity of this threat.
The Emergence of Perceptual Expertise with Fingerprints Over Time
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 12-2017
Identification personified
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 09-2013
Insight and the selection of ideas
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 24-02-2018
Abstract: Perhaps it is no accident that insight moments accompany some of humanity’s most important discoveries in science, medicine, and art. Here we propose that feelings of insight play a central role in (heuristically) selecting an idea from the stream of consciousness by capturing attention and eliciting a sense of intuitive confidence permitting fast action under uncertainty. The mechanisms underlying this Eureka heuristic are explained within an active inference framework. First, implicit restructuring via Bayesian reduction leads to a higher-order pre- diction error (i.e., the content of insight). Second, dopaminergic precision-weighting of the prediction error accounts for the intuitive confidence, pleasure, and attentional capture (i.e., the feeling of insight). This insight as precision account is consistent with the phenomenology, accuracy, and neural unfolding of insight, as well as its effects on belief and decision-making. We conclude by reflecting on dangers of the Eureka Heuristic, including the arising and entrenchment of false beliefs and the vulnerability of insights under psychoactive substances and misinformation.
Expertise in Fingerprint Identification
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 20-06-2013
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.
The effect of expertise, target usefulness and domain-specificity on visual search
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 31-07-2020
Abstract: People who have had extensive training in a domain perform far better on many perceptual tasks than those without any training. Perceptual experts tend to constrain their attention to features that will enable them to make decisions quickly and accurately, and time and again their expertise is shown to be domain-specific. We compared a group of fingerprint examiners to a group of novices on their visual search ability across two experiments – one where participants searched for corresponding features and another where they searched for points of difference. We varied how useful the target feature was and whether participants searched for these targets in a typical fingerprint or one that had been scrambled. In both instances, the experts more efficiently located target fragments (or changes) when searching for them in intact fingerprints, but not scrambled fingerprints. In Experiment 1, experts more efficiently located useful target fragments compared to novices, but not less useful fragments. Even though the nature of the task may influence the strategies that participants use, the visual search advantages that experts enjoy appear to hinge on a sensitivity to what is useful and on the structural regularities of their domain. These results align with a domain-specific account of expertise and suggest that perceptual training ought to involve learning to attend to task-critical features.
Cue interaction and judgments of causality: Contributions of causal and associative processes
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 2004
DOI: 10.3758/BF03195824
Abstract: In four experiments, the predictions made by causal model theory and the Rescorla-Wagner model were tested by using a cue interaction paradigm that measures the relative response to a given event based on the influence or salience of an alternative event. Experiments 1 and 2 uncorrelated two variables that have typically been confounded in the literature (causal order and the number of cues and outcomes) and demonstrated that overall contingency judgments are influenced by the causal structure of the events. Experiment 3 showed that trial-by-trial prediction responses, a second measure of causal assessment, were not influenced by the causal structure of the described events. Experiment 4 revealed that participants became less sensitive to the influence of the causal structure in both their ratings and their predictions as trials progressed. Thus, two experiments provided evidence for high-level (causal reasoning) processes, and two experiments provided evidence for low-level (associative) processes. We argue that both factors influence causal assessment, depending on what is being asked about the events and participants' experience with those events.
Eliciting false insights with semantic priming
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 02-04-2021
Abstract: The insight experience (or ‘Aha moment’) generally evokes strong feelings of certainty and confidence. An ‘Aha’ experience for a false idea could underlie many false beliefs and delusions. However, for as long as insight experiences have been studied, false insights have remained difficult to elicit experimentally. That difficulty, in turn, highlights the fact that we know little about what causes people to experience a false insight. Across two experiments (total N=300), we developed and tested a new paradigm to elicit false insights. In Experiment 1 we used a combination of semantic priming and visual similarity to elicit feelings of insight for incorrect solutions to anagrams. These false insights were relatively common but were experienced as weaker than correct ones. In Experiment 2 we replicated the findings of Experiment 1 and found that semantic priming had a greater impact than visual similarity on false insights, although the combination of the two manipulations produced the strongest effect. These studies highlight the importance of misleading semantic processing in the generation of false insights.
The illusion of insight: Detailed warnings reduce but do not prevent false Aha! moments
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 28-06-2022
Abstract: False “Aha!” moments can be elicited experimentally using the False Insight Anagram Task (FIAT), which combines semantic priming and visual similarity manipulations to lead participants into having “Aha!” moments for incorrect anagram solutions. In a preregistered experiment (N=255), we tested whether warning participants and explaining to them exactly how they were being deceived, would reduce their susceptibility to false insights. We found that simple warnings did not reduce the incidence of false insights. On the other hand, participants who were given a detailed explanation of the methods used to deceive them experienced a small reduction in false insights compared to participants given no warning at all. Our findings suggest that the FIAT elicits a robust false insight effect that is hard to overcome, demonstrating the persuasive nature of false insights when the conditions are ripe for them.
Beliefs about error rates and human judgment in forensic science
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 13-05-2018
Abstract: Forensic science techniques are often used in criminal trials to infer the identity of theperpetrator of crime and jurors often find this evidence very persuasive. Unfortunately, two of the leading causes of wrongful convictions are forensic science testing errors and false or misleading forensic testimony (Saks & Koehler, 2005). Therefore, it is important to understand jurors pre- existing beliefs about forensic science, as these beliefs may impact how they evaluate forensic evidence in the courtroom. In this study, we examine people’s perceptions of the likelihood of error and human judgment involved at each stage of the forensic science process (i.e., collection, storage, testing, analysis, reporting, and presenting). In addition, we examine peoples’ perceptions of the accuracy of — and human judgment involved in — 16 different forensic techniques. We find that, in contrast to what would be expected by the CSI effect literature, participants believed that the process of forensic science involved considerable human judgment and was relatively error-prone. In addition, participants had wide-ranging beliefs about the accuracy of various forensic techniques, ranging from 65.18% (document analysis) up to 89.95% (DNA). For some forensic techniques, estimates were lower than that found in experimental proficiency studies, suggesting that our participants are more skeptical of certain forensic evidence than they need to be. Keywords: Forensic science, forensic evidence, accuracy, error rate, CSI effect.
Promoting Open Science: A holistic approach to changing behaviour
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 04-2021
Abstract: Manuscript accepted for publication at Collabra: Psychology. In this article, we provide a toolbox of recommendations and resources for those who desire to promote the uptake of open scientific practices. Open Science encompasses a range of behaviours that aim to improve the transparency of scientific research. This paper is ided into seven sections, each devoted to different group or institution in the research ecosystem: colleagues, students, departments and faculties, universities, academic libraries, journals, and funders. We describe the behavioural influences and incentives for each of these stakeholders and changes they can make to foster Open Science. Our primary goal is to suggest actions that researchers can take to promote these behaviours, inspired by simple principles of behaviour change: make it easy, social, and attractive. In isolation, a small shift in one person’s behaviour may appear to make little difference, but when combined, many shifts can radically alter shared norms and culture. We offer this toolbox to assist in iduals and institutions in cultivating a more open research culture.
Thinking style and psychosis proneness do not predict false insights
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 23-04-2022
Abstract: The FIAT paradigm (Grimmer et al., 2022) is a novel method of eliciting ‘Aha’ moments for incorrect solutions to anagrams in the laboratory, i.e. false insights. There exist many documented reports of psychotic symptoms accompanying strong feelings of ‘Aha!’ (Feyaerts et al., 2021 Mishara, 2010 Tulver et al., 2021), therefore, the newly developed FIAT could reveal whether people who have more false insights are more prone to psychosis and delusion. To test this possibility, we recruited 200 participants to take an adapted version of the FIAT and complete measures of thinking style and psychosis proneness. We found no association between experimentally induced false insights and measures of Schizotypy, Need for Cognition, Jumping to Conclusions, Aberrant Salience, Faith in Intuition, or the Cognitive Reflection Task. We conclude that experiencing false insights might not be constrained to any particular type of person, but rather, may arise for anyone under the right circumstances.
Irrelevant insights make worldviews ring true
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 11-06-2021
Abstract: Our basic beliefs about reality can be impossible to prove and yet we can feel a strong intuitive conviction about them, as exemplified by insights that imbue an idea with immediate certainty.Here we presented participants with worldview beliefs such as “people’s core qualities are fixed”and simultaneously elicited an aha moment. In the first experiment (N = 3000, which included adirect replication), participants rated worldview beliefs as truer when they solved anagrams and also experienced aha moments. A second experiment (N = 1564) showed that the worldview statement and the aha moment must be perceived simultaneously for this ‘insight misattribution’ effect to occur. These results demonstrate that artificially induced aha moments can make worldview beliefs seem truer, possibly because humans partially rely on feelings of insight to appraise an idea’s veracity. Feelings of insight are therefore not epiphenomenal and should be investigated for their effects on decisions, beliefs, and delusions.
Unintended effects of memory on decision making: A breakdown in access control
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2010
Specific versus varied practice in perceptual expertise training.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 12-2022
DOI: 10.1037/XHP0001057
The Relative Effect of Cue Interaction
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 08-2003
DOI: 10.1080/02724990244000278
Abstract: It is well established that two predictor cues ( A and B) of a common outcome interact in that the judgement of the relationship between each cue and the outcome is influenced by the pairing history of the other cue with that outcome. For ex le, when the contingency of A with an outcome is weaker than the contingency of B with that outcome, the rating of the predictiveness of A is reduced relative to a situation where only A is paired with the outcome. One explanation of such cue interaction effects is provided by the conditional Δ P account. Spellman (1996b) derived a counterintuitive prediction of the conditional Δ P account where cue interaction should not occur under certain conditions even though a relatively poor predictor of an outcome is paired with a relatively good predictor of that outcome. However, Spellman (1996b) did not provide data to evaluate this prediction. In the present paper, we report the relevant data and show that they are consistent with the conditional Δ P account. A competing account of cue interaction is provided by the Rescorla-Wagner (RW) model. We derive the predictions of the RW model for the conditions specified by Spellman (1996b), and show that at asymptote the predictions of the RW model are identical to those of the conditional Δ P account.
Identifying Fingerprint Expertise
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 07-2011
Human matching performance of genuine crime scene latent fingerprints.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 2014
DOI: 10.1037/LHB0000051
Abstract: There has been very little research into the nature and development of fingerprint matching expertise. Here we present the results of an experiment testing the claimed matching expertise of fingerprint examiners. Expert (n = 37), intermediate trainee (n = 8), new trainee (n = 9), and novice (n = 37) participants performed a fingerprint discrimination task involving genuine crime scene latent fingerprints, their matches, and highly similar distractors, in a signal detection paradigm. Results show that qualified, court-practicing fingerprint experts were exceedingly accurate compared with novices. Experts showed a conservative response bias, tending to err on the side of caution by making more errors of the sort that could allow a guilty person to escape detection than errors of the sort that could falsely incriminate an innocent person. The superior performance of experts was not simply a function of their ability to match prints, per se, but a result of their ability to identify the highly similar, but nonmatching fingerprints as such. Comparing these results with previous experiments, experts were even more conservative in their decision making when dealing with these genuine crime scene prints than when dealing with simulated crime scene prints, and this conservatism made them relatively less accurate overall. Intermediate trainees-despite their lack of qualification and average 3.5 years experience-performed about as accurately as qualified experts who had an average 17.5 years experience. New trainees-despite their 5-week, full-time training course or their 6 months experience-were not any better than novices at discriminating matching and similar nonmatching prints, they were just more conservative. Further research is required to determine the precise nature of fingerprint matching expertise and the factors that influence performance. The findings of this representative, lab-based experiment may have implications for the way fingerprint examiners testify in court, but what the findings mean for reasoning about expert performance in the wild is an open, empirical, and epistemological question.
Flashed Face Distortion Effect: Grotesque Faces from Relative Spaces
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 2011
DOI: 10.1068/P6968
Abstract: We describe a novel face distortion effect resulting from the fast-paced presentation of eye-aligned faces. When cycling through the faces on a computer screen, each face seems to become a caricature of itself and some faces appear highly deformed, even grotesque. The degree of distortion is greatest for faces that deviate from the others in the set on a particular dimension (eg if a person has a large forehead, it looks particularly large). This new method of image presentation, based on alignment and speed, could provide a useful tool for investigating contrastive distortion effects and face adaptation.
Generalization in fingerprint matching experiments
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2014
Is Perruchet’s dissociation between eyeblink conditioned responding and outcome expectancy evidence for two learning systems?
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 2009
DOI: 10.1037/A0013294
Abstract: P. Perruchet (1985b) showed a double dissociation of conditioned responses (CRs) and expectancy for an airpuff unconditioned stimulus (US) in a 50% partial reinforcement schedule in human eyeblink conditioning. In the Perruchet effect, participants show an increase in CRs and a concurrent decrease in expectancy for the airpuff across runs of reinforced trials conversely, participants show a decrease in CRs and a concurrent increase in expectancy for the airpuff across runs of nonreinforced trials. Three eyeblink conditioning experiments investigated whether the linear trend in eyeblink CRs in the Perruchet effect is a result of changes in associative strength of the conditioned stimulus (CS), US sensitization, or learning the precise timing of the US. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that the linear trend in eyeblink CRs is not the result of US sensitization. Experiment 3 showed that the linear trend in eyeblink CRs is present with both a fixed and a variable CS-US interval and so is not the result of learning the precise timing of the US. The results are difficult to reconcile with a single learning process model of associative learning in which expectancy mediates CRs.
Putting bias into context: The role of familiarity in identification.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 2016
DOI: 10.1037/LHB0000154
Abstract: Previous demonstrations of context effects in the forensic comparison sciences have shown that the number of "match" responses a person makes can be swayed by case information. Less clear is whether these effects are a result of changes in accuracy (e.g., discrimination ability), a shift in response bias (e.g., tendency to say "match" or "no match") or a mix of the 2. We present a series of experiments where we use a signal detection framework to examine the effects of case information (separately) on forensic comparison accuracy and response bias. We also explore the role of familiarity as 1 potential mechanism for case information to sway accuracy. In Experiment 1, case information about crimes perceived to be more severe swayed people to say "match" more, but had little bearing on their ability to discriminate matching and nonmatching fingerprint pairs. In Experiment 2, case information did affect accuracy when it was familiar (i.e., if a previous similar case was associated with a "match" then people were more likely to also rate the current case as a "match," even though it was not). Even when we blinded people to all extrinsic case information in Experiment 3, accuracy was significantly affected by the familiarity of the fingerprints. These results demonstrate that contextual factors can have different (and independent) influences on accuracy and response bias and that even subtle information can affect accuracy if it is sufficiently similar to the case or trace at hand.
Getting a grip on insight: An embodied measure of Aha! and metacognition during problem solving
Publisher: CABI Publishing
Date: 28-05-2018
Abstract: A challenge unique to psychology is objectively capturing ephemeral subjective states during controlled experiments. Large bodies of literature use metacognitive probes and self-reports in order to measure states of knowing, perceived progress, as well as the onset of phenomenologies such as surprise or insight. Here we evaluate the usefulness of a visceral measure—the dynamometer—in a problem solving context to detect feelings of progress and insight experiences. The continuous measure of hand grip strength provides multiple data points per second and effectively captures the onset of insight experiences in real-time, and maps onto other measures showing convergent validity. Our results highlight the importance of viewing metacognitions during problem solving and insight moments as dissociable events that show different behavioural outcomes. We also found evidence that the participants were embodying the intensity of the insight experience, despite not being instructed to do so. The dynamometer may be a useful tool in any context where metacognitions are monitored continuously, and is particularly well suited for research in problem solving and insight.
Truth and transparency in expertise research
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 05-11-2019
Abstract: Across research areas, general issues of low statistical power, publication bias, undisclosed flexibility in data analysis, and researcher degrees of freedom, can be recipes for irreproducibility. To address the problem, a reform movement known as the ‘credibility revolution’ emphasises the need for greater transparency in how research is conducted. In this article, we describe a general approach to creating a culture of openness—tailored for expertise researchers—and describe how and why practices such as ‘preregistration,’ ‘open notebooks,’ ‘open data,’ ‘open materials,’ and ‘open communication,’ might be applied to research on experts. We argue that adopting these practices helps to connect end-users with the entire research lifecycle, and helps to reconnect researchers with the process of gaining knowledge. By sharing notes about our predictions and plans along the way, we are forced to confront their merits. By documenting design and data analytic decisions ahead of time, and by sharing data and materials, we make errors and insights more discoverable. And by inviting research partners, expert practitioners, and the public into the lab, we stand the best chance of successfully translating research into practice.
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End Date: 11-2016
Amount: $332,000.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityDiscovery Projects - Grant ID: DP0985830
Start Date: 2009
End Date: 12-2012
Amount: $169,000.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded Activity