Be a lab rat, for science! Conclusion Scales

[Boyd Baumgartner]

As part of NIJ grant 2018-DU-BX-0212, we've created an experiment that measures how people interpret different conclusion scales. This is important because OSAC, IAI, and ASB are all discussing whether to switch to different language to report forensic conclusions. However, it seems premature to switch before we know how different conclusion statements are interpreted, and this is why NIJ funded our study.

This experiment is different than the one you may have done that did actual comparisons. In this new study, you read different conclusion scales and order them on a scale according to how much strength of evidence they imply for different propositions (or hypotheses). It will take about 15 minutes total, and the first 8 minutes involve a video that will also be used for members of the general public (sorry if it is a little boring for you, but we need to keep things the same for all groups).

To participate, you don't need a login or password. All you do is go to the link below, watch the video, place the conclusion statements, and then complete the demographics. It is completely anonymous, and there is a consent form at the beginning that has more information about the study. Here is the link:

https://buseylab.sitehost.iu.edu/Percei ... e/?user=fx

If your email system deletes the link, try this: buseylab.sitehost.iu.edu/PerceivedStrengthScale/?user=fx

I anticipate that the results will directly contribute to the debates happening at OSAC, ASB, and other policy-making organizations. Your contribution will have a real effect on future policy decisions.

You are also welcome to send this email with the link to others in your lab or community who you think might be interested. All they need is to click the link to get started, and make sure to fill out the demographics to have their data included in the final results. I really appreciate all our efforts to improve the friction ridge discipline.

Sincerely,

Tom

Thomas Busey
Professor of Cognitive Science
Indiana University, Bloomington, IN

[Texas Pat]

As an indicator that might be of use to the OSAC and the ASB, this survey seemed more appropriate for lay persons eligible for a jury pool. Experienced latent print examiners cannot help but be biased in how we interpret and rank the statements being evaluated.

[josher89]

I wholeheartedly agree, Pat, but...

...I took the survey, which is quite short, and found that it will still be meaningful because the last few questions are demographic and I think it will be interesting to see how latent print examiners rank the statements that are provided. It will of course also be interesting to see if this gets out to the general public to see how they would rank those as well. I hope Dr. Busey gets plenty of data for this.

[Boyd Baumgartner]

As an indicator that might be of use to the OSAC and the ASB, this survey seemed more appropriate for lay persons eligible for a jury pool. Experienced latent print examiners cannot help but be biased in how we interpret and rank the statements being evaluated.

I think it's more about how the responses will cluster, even with Examiners. Are you putting your response at the lower bound of a range? Is it an absolute fixed point at the upper bound of a range? How will Examiners place the more probabilistic statements? I think it will be more interesting than you might think on first reflection.

One last thing that I would add, and that is that language mitigates experience in many real ways. That being said I think the data will show that the further you get away from statements of object recognition and more into probabilism and/or OSAC-ese (I'm pretty sure that's what Ewoks speak) that you'll get more variation because those scales aren't how people structure experience. Bookmark this thread and we'll revisit it when the data comes out.