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Category: Project

Description: In the current project, we are investigating whether there is a memory advantage among forensic fingerprint examiners when recognising fingerprints. In our previous work on memory for fingerprints, Thompson and Tangen (2014) provided preliminary evidence of a superior short-term memory capacity of fingerprint examiners. Unlike our previous investigation of novice vs expert short- and long-term memory, in this current examination of recognition memory, participants are presented with each latent print for 30 seconds, which is plenty of time for uninterrupted analysis and verbal encoding, followed by ten fully rolled prints for them to choose from at their own pace (within a 20 second window). We expect the performance on this task to reflect people’s relative experience with analysing fingerprints.