A risk-based approach to cognitive bias in forensic science.

Over the past decade, the potential impact of cognitive bias in forensic science has instigated much discussion and debate between academics, scientists and those in the justice sector. Evidence of bias influencing subjective decision-making across a range of forensic disciplines has been described in the literature. Forensic service organisations are being urged to address cognitive bias in subjective decision-making by designing processes or procedures to limit access to (irrelevant) contextual information or reduce dependence on cognitive functions.

The analysis of dyes in ball point pen inks on single paper fibres using laser desorption ionisation time of flight mass spectrometry (LDI-TOFMS).

An important requisite for the forensic analysis of inks on documents is that damage to the document is avoided or minimised. This paper describes a technique for dye identification in ballpoint pen inks using LDI-TOFMS on single ink bearing paper fibres and its application to a case. A single ink bearing paper fibre can be prised from the surface of the document under a stereo microscope and presented to the instrument for analysis without further treatment.

Forensic document examiners' skill in distinguishing between natural and disguised handwriting behaviors.

Disguised handwriting is problematic for forensic document examiners (FDEs) and attracts higher misleading and inconclusive rates on authorship opinions than does genuine writing (Found B, Rogers D, International Graphonomics Society, 2005). There are currently no published empirical data on FDEs' expertise in distinguishing between natural and disguised writing behavior. This paper reports on the skill of FDEs for determining the writing process of 140 pairs of natural and disguised writings and compares their results with those of a control group of laypeople.

Forensic handwriting examiners' opinions on the process of production of disguised and simulated signatures.

Large-scale blind testing of forensic handwriting examiners (FHEs) has shown that authorship opinions on disguised and simulated signatures attract higher misleading and inconclusive rates than genuine signatures do. To test whether this is due to the failure of FHEs to detect the indicators of disguise/simulation behaviours we examined their opinions regarding the 'process of production' (which in this case was a choice between written naturally or written using a disguise/simulation strategy) of the questioned disguised and simulated signatures in blinded skill testing trials. The relationship between their process opinions and authorship opinions is then assessed.