A cognitive forensic framework to study and mitigate human observer bias

In response to calls for research from the National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. Congress, and the U.S. Intelligence Community, we constructed a cognitive forensic framework to investigate methods to mitigate human observer bias and restore analytic objectivity. In this paper, we describe relevant research findings with a focus on the impact of relevance, omission, invalidation, and focality on investigative judgment. We discuss prior work in mitigating observer bias in strongly related disciplines such as forensic science, intelligence analysis, and medical diagnosis. Our research framework was developed with two goals in mind: 1. study the manifestation of human observer bias in an ecologically valid test environment, and 2. evaluate the efficacy of specific mitigation techniques compared to purely intuitive analysis. The test protocols and the test environment are described, and the findings reported here should motivate further research on this topic in order to identify effective techniques that help investigators and analysts to avoid cognitive pitfalls in their work.