Revealing structure in images: Assisting identification in forensics (2009-present)

Fingerprint identification has been a crucial source of evidence in court for over 100 years. The misidentification of crime-scene fingerprints is potentially devastating -- innocent people could be wrongly convicted, and guilty people could be wrongly acquitted -- and serious cases of misidentification have occurred. Although the current identification process primarily involves human perception and judgement, very little psychological research has been conducted on these processes.

My research investigates the perceptual and cognitive processes underlying identification of complex visual stimuli such as fingerprints. My research will provide tools, techniques and training methods to aid professionals in correctly identifying forensic evidence.

Multisensory Integration with Advanced Displays (2007-Present)

Every day we humans continually combine information from our eyes and ears. But how does this work in our day-to-day lives? My research examines how our senses are combined when using advanced technology as we move about the world. Results show that people find it hard to combine sights and sounds when what they're seeing and what they're hearing is not moving together (Thompson & Sanderson, 2008).