Dr. Itiel E. Dror (Ph.D. Harvard, 1994), a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the University of Southampton, England, U.K. has been doing research in cognitive neuroscience. His special interest is in high-level cognitive phenomena, and his research encompasses visual-spatial abilities, mental imagery, decision making, and knowledge acquisition and expertise.
The real-world application of his research has propelled him in the area of fingerprint, face, and other biometric identification systems. Recent research has put him squarely in the path of friction ridge examiners, by the publication of an article, along with several co-authors/researchers titled “Contextual information renders experts vulnerable to making erroneous identifications.” Forensic Science International, 156 (1), 74-78 (2006).
The three authors also wrote another report, delivered at the Fingerprint Society Meeting in Brighton in 2004, entitled “The vulnerability of fingerprint science and potential pitfalls in the identification process - How can they be addressed and overcome?” Dr. Dror's list of published research is impressive, encompassing nearly 30 papers/lectures in the last three years on topics of complex pattern recognition, fingerprint identification, and other biometric identification fields. His 2004 presentations directly of relevance to friction ridge examiners were at delivered at the Autumn Conference of the Forensic Science Society, at the 14th International Forensic Science Symposium, and at the International Centre for Advanced Research in Identification Science, to name but a few of the learned groups.
Most recently, Dr. Dror was interviewed by the BBC on his research in erroneous “fingerprint identifications” and how they are caused.. Dr. Dror has given us permission to provide a link to the source where the entire interview can be heard and observed. Click on:
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~id/bbc.html
Dr. Dror does not dispute the uniqueness of friction ridge patterns, nor does he attack the method whereby individualizations are effected by qualified examiners. He does illustrate in a graphic way how and why experienced persons make erroneous identifications.
