On Forensic Cognitive Bias In Forensic Expertise

Cognitive bias refers to a systematic and unconscious deviation from facts in the sensation,perception,analysis,judgment and decision making.It is the inevitable result of human cognitive weaknesses,rather than a deliberate act.Forensic examiner use the principles and methods of forensic science to compare samples,explain test results,write test reports,which are in line with the general psychological cognitive process of human beings.Therefore,the forensic examiner will inevitably get wrong opinion.Since the discovery of cognitive bias in Mayfield's case,and continuous research on the cognitive bias in forensic expertise has made the legal,forensic and psychological community in many countries realize the seriousness of forensic cognitive bias.Most forensic science disciplines lack objective measurement methods and reliable measurement tools.So that forensic examiner is main analytical tool.Even have objective measurement methods,people play an important role in forensic science.Because of the subjectivity of the test process,examiner are prone to make errors under the influence of cognitive bias,so the control of cognitive bias is a matter of fairness and justice for forensic expertise.Therefore,this paper will systematically study the cognitive bias in forensic expertise.This paper is composed of introduction,three chapters and conclusion.The introduction mainly introduces the research status at home and abroad,the research significance,the focus and the research methods of this paper.The research status at home and abroad is sorted out from four aspects.In general,the study of cognitive bias in forensic expertise in abroad started early,and the research results are rich.China lacks of attention to this problem,and it is in the initial stage.Therefore,the theoretical significance of this paper is to study the forensic cognitive bias with cognitive psychology,to create new knowledge growth points of forensic science,to provide a new perspective to understand criminal wrongful cases.The practical significance is to improve the reliability of scientific evidence and the control quality of forensic laboratories.In addition,the professional ethics of information understanding correlation should be proposed for forensic examiner.This paper will mainly use the comparative research method and the cross research method to study the existence form,different types,occurrence mechanism and action mechanism of forensic cognitive bias,and summarize bias mitigation strategy.The first chapter introduces the classical psychological research on cognitive bias,clarifying the influence factors of cognitive bias,such as sensation and perception,social cognition,reasoning,motivation and emotion.Combined with the characteristics of forensic science,this paper examines the special forensic cognitive bias from the perspective of cognitive system theory,analyzes the specific influence factors of forensic cognitive bias,and recognizes the reasons of wrong forensic opinions from the perspective of forensic cognitive bias.The second chapter analyzes the existence form and mechanism of forensic cognitive bias and the relationship between pseudo-corroboration and the flood of bias.There are two types of forensic cognitive bias:cognitive subject bias and cognitive contextual bias.The bias cascade effect and the bias snowball effect are two mechanisms of forensic cognitive bias.Because cognitive bias is implicit and difficult to detect,it is difficult to find out the wrong expert opinions caused by cognitive bias and often form pseudo-corroborationThe third chapter summarizes the existing coping strategies to control forensic cognitive bias.At present,foreign scholars have proposed five coping strategies for forensic cognitive bias,including context manager,linear sequence disclosure procedure,evidence lineups,blinding review,and cognitive vocational training.In this paper,respectively from the two aspects of theoretical basis and practical application,explain the design principle support and specific application methods of these coping strategies.