B0291
Title: Estimating error rates in binary forensic decisions with inconclusive outcomes
Authors: Karen Kafadar - University of Virginia (United States) [presenting]
Abstract: Binary decision-making occurs in many areas of science and policy; e.g., medicine (tumour present or absent), forensics (ID or exclusion), finance (good or bad credit risk), and agriculture (healthy or diseased plant). Lab or field studies may be conducted to assess the error rates in such binary decision-making processes (e.g., proficiency tests for radiologists or latent print examiners). In such tests, a true outcome is known (e.g., latent print and file print did or did not come from the same source), but study outcomes allow three responses (e.g., "same," "different," "inconclusive"). Many articles in forensic science report the results of such studies by completely ignoring "inconclusive" responses, which can artificially increase the apparent accuracy rate. Ways of estimating error rates in such studies are discussed that more fairly account for "inconclusive" decisions and enable fair comparisons of results across studies.
