Jack of all trades, master of one: domain-specific and domain-general contributions to perceptual expertise in visual comparison.
Domain-general
Expertise
Forensic science
Individual differences
Pattern-matching
Perceptual expertise
Visual comparison
Journal
Cognitive research: principles and implications
ISSN: 2365-7464
Titre abrégé: Cogn Res Princ Implic
Pays: England
ID NLM: 101697632
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
29 Oct 2024
29 Oct 2024
Historique:
received:
01
04
2024
accepted:
09
09
2024
medline:
29
10
2024
pubmed:
29
10
2024
entrez:
29
10
2024
Statut:
epublish
Résumé
Perceptual expertise is typically domain-specific and rarely generalises beyond an expert's domain of experience. Forensic feature-comparison examiners outperform the norm in domain-specific visual comparison, but emerging research suggests that they show advantages on other similar tasks outside their domain of expertise. For example, fingerprint examiners not only outperform novices in fingerprint comparison, but also in face comparison. Yet, the extent to which their skills generalise is poorly understood. In this study, we investigated the generalisability of perceptual expertise amongst forensic examiners by comparing their performance to novices and other examiners within and outside their area of expertise. We recruited 85 experts from three forensic disciplines (face, fingerprint, and firearms) and asked them to complete four different visual comparison tasks: faces, fingerprints, firearms, and novel-objects. Examiners displayed domain-specific expertise: they outperformed novices and other examiners within their domain of visual comparison expertise. Yet, some of their skill also generalised: examiners also outperformed novices outside their area of expertise. However, while individual differences in examiners' performance within their domain of experience were associated with their performance in a novel comparison task, they were not related to their performance on tasks outside their expert domain. These results provide key insight into the domain-specific and domain-general contributions of forensic examiners' perceptual expertise. Forensic expertise lends some generalisable skill to other visual comparison tasks, but best performance is still seen within examiners' domain of expertise.
Identifiants
pubmed: 39467920
doi: 10.1186/s41235-024-00596-0
pii: 10.1186/s41235-024-00596-0
doi:
Types de publication
Journal Article
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Pagination
73Subventions
Organisme : UK Research and Innovation
ID : #MR/T02027X/1
Informations de copyright
© 2024. The Author(s).
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