When experience does not promote expertise: security professionals fail to detect low prevalence fake IDs

Abstract

Professional screeners frequently verify photograph IDs in such industries as professional security, bar tending, and sales of age-restricted materials. Moreover, security screening is a vital tool for law enforcement in the search for missing or wanted persons. Nevertheless, previous research demonstrates that novice participants fail to spot fake IDs when they are rare (i.e., the low prevalence effect; LPE). To address whether this phenomenon also occurs with professional screeners, we conducted three experiments. Experiment 1 compared security professional and non-professionals. Experiment 2 compared bar-security professionals, access-security professionals, and non-professionals. Finally, Experiment 3 added a newly created Professional Identity Training Questionnaire to determine whether and how aspects of professionals’ employment predict ID-matching accuracy. Across all three experiments, all participants were susceptible to the LPE regardless of professional status. Neither length/type of professional experience nor length/type of training experience affected ID verification performance. We discuss task performance and survey responses with aims to acknowledge and address this potential problem in real-world screening scenarios.

The low prevalence effect in fingerprint comparison amongst forensic science trainees and novices

“…These effects were not driven by changes in sensitivity (i.e., sensitivity to the presence of a target stimulus), but rather by criterion shifts (i.e., response biases) in novices’ tendency to respond ‘match’ on any given trial when match trials were more common, and vice versa when non-match trials were more common. These results mirror effects also seen in face comparison [ 16 , 17 , 20 , 21 ]; although see [ 22 ] for an exception).…”

“…These results add to evidence that forensic science decision-making can be impacted by task-irrelevant extraneous factors and cognitive bias (see [ 41 ] for review) and provide further evidence that standard forensic training does not inoculate against base rate-induced biases, as forensic trainees and novices were equally susceptible to the low prevalence effect. As the low prevalence effect was observed in both trainees and novices, these results also add to growing evidence that expertise or experience does not necessarily inoculate decision-makers against the low prevalence effect–a bias that has been identified amongst other professionals, including TSA baggage screeners [ 18 ], security professionals [ 21 ], and doctors [ 28 ].…”

“…For example, both medical students and fully-qualified doctors are equally susceptible to the low prevalence effect in detecting cancer lesions [ 28 ]. Many other studies investigating this effect also use trainee samples–for example, newly-trained TSA baggage screeners [ 18 ] or newly-trained security screeners [ 21 ]. It is therefore likely that professional forensic examiners are equally susceptible to the low prevalence effect in casework.…”

“…The low prevalence effect has proven to be remarkably robust; prior attempts to correct this bias–such as allowing participants to correct their answers [ 23 , 24 ], imposing slower responding [ 25 , 26 ], and explicit warnings [ 27 ]–have largely failed. Moreover, prior studies in non-forensic domains have found that novices and professionals are equally susceptible to the low prevalence effect, including TSA baggage screeners [ 18 ], security professionals [ 21 ], and doctors [ 28 ]–which suggests that standard training and experience fail to protect against it.…”

Low prevalence match and mismatch detection in simultaneous face matching: Influence of face recognition ability and feature focus guidance

“…SR's advantage over both sets of controls (Experiments 1 and 2) was found in all prevalence and guidance conditions, albeit not all comparisons within interaction analyses were significant. Therefore, unlike experienced identity verification professionals (Weatherford et al, 2021), individuals with pre-existing superior face recognition ability may be less affected by low prevalence effects. That being said, approximately 10% of SRs achieved maximum scores, therefore it is not possible to rule out ceiling effects as obscuring low prevalence effects in SRs.…”