In this post-New Year’s Eve 2023-2024 episode, the guys start by discussing their New Year’s Eve and play another round of Where in the Whorld.  They then introduce their guest from the New South Wales Police Force, Andrew Chapman.  Glenn had the benefit of seeing Andy’s presentation at IAFS in Sydney.  Andy presented on a fingerprint black box error rate study conducted with laypeople, trainees, and experts in New South Wales, Australia.  The guys discuss various statistics in the study, especially when comparing across the participant groups.  The Aussie data are very similar to U.S. examiner data and the guys draw some parallels to other research.  The guys also discuss some novel aspects to the study design that make this one such a fascinating study.

Double Loop Podcast

Episode 266 - Andy Chapman Interview - Aussie Black Box Study

Eric and Glenn are back from a little summer break, prepping for the 2024 IAI Conference in Reno.  They do a final “Where in the Whorld?” game.  Then they jump into a recent paper on “Inconclusive” decisions (Swofford, et al. (2024)  “Inconclusive Decisions and Error Rates in Forensic Science”, Forensic Science International: Synergy (vol 8; 100472)) authored by several members of NIST.  The paper proposes a method for computing and communicating error rates when “inconclusive” decisions are made.  The paper also focuses on making clear distinctions between “method performance” versus “method conformance”.  The guys discuss their views on the method and the implications the paper may have for fingerprint examiners and their agencies.

Swofford, H. , Lund, S. , Iyer, H. , Butler, J. , Soons, J. , Thompson, R. , Desiderio, V. , Jones, J. and Ramotowski, R. (2024), Inconclusive Decisions and Error Rates in Forensic Science, Forensic Science International: Synergy, [online], https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fsisyn.2024.100472, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=957335 (Accessed August 31, 2024)

Link to open source paper here:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fsisyn.2024.100472

Episode 274 - NIST Inconclusive Paper

In this episode, Glenn and Eric start with a quick game of “A Truth, A Lie, and a Mandella Effect”.  Then they pose a question from a listener regarding interest in  a forum where listeners can go and discuss the episodes of the show, ask questions, and chat “amongst themselves”.  Finally they get to the long awaited Noblis/FBI study “Black Box 2” latent fingerprint error rate study.  This is a re-do of the 2011 black box study for latent fingerprint performance.  This study “Accuracy and reproducibility of latent print decisions on comparisons from searches of an automated fingerprint identification system” by Hicklin, Richetelli, Taylor and Buscaglia (For Sci Intl, 370 (2025), 112457), reported the performance of 156 U.S. latent print examiner participants each reviewing about 100 latent prints/comparisons resulting in over 14,000 trials.  The study reports numerous statistics of performance such as sensitivity (63%), specificity (70%), false positive error rate (0.2%), and false negative error rate (4.2%).  The guys also discuss some important study design differences, plus there are a lot of data in the appendices.  Finally they talk about the number of false positives made in the study (n=23) and the fact that 13 of those 23 were made by one participant and how that impacted the results.

Article is available for free at:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forsciint.2025.112457



Episode 282 - Noblis-FBI Black Box 2 Fingerprint Study

In this episode, Eric stumps Glenn with a geography based Mandela Effect question.  Then the guys welcome their guest commentator, Brendan Max, Public Defender and Chief of the Forensic Science Division in Chicago, Illinois.  Eric, Glenn, and Brendan take a second look at the 2025 FBI/Noblis follow-up black box study for latent fingerprints.  The guys had previously done a cursory review of the paper in Episode 282, and now wanted to dig in a bit into the appendices and take another look at some trends.  Brendan offers his insights and shows that he’s pretty proficient with a spreadsheet too!  The guys go back and forth discussing the strengths and limitations of the study and where the methodology and practice has likely improved since the original Black Box study (conducted in 2009).

Article is available for free at:
doi.org/10.1016/j.forsciint.2025.112457



Episode 284 - Black Box '22 - Part 2 (with Brendan Max)

Whether you're a practicing Latent Print Examiner or you're interested in forensics and true crime, the Double Loop Podcast is a weekly show featuring Glenn Langenburg and Eric Ray discussing latent print topics, current events in forensic science, the newest research articles, interesting guests, and analysis of notable cases from a forensic scientist perspective.

New tracks tagged #error rates