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Dr Bethany Growns

Contact

Department: School of Psychology, Speech and Hearing

Email: bethany.growns@canterbury.ac.nz

Direct Dial: +64 3 3692560

Office:

Language: English

About
Research / Creative works

Fields of Research

  • Cognitive science
  • Perceptual expertise
  • Forensic science decision-making
  • Individual differences
  • Training and selection

Researcher Summary

I am a cognitive scientist and a Lecturer at the University of Canterbury. I teach courses on forensic psychology and psychology and law.

My research focuses on how forensic science practitioners make decisions in their work. How does a fingerprint examiner determine whether two fingerprints are from the same person or two different people? How does a firearms examiner decide whether two cartridge cases have been fired from the same gun or two different guns? I am interested in the psychology behind how forensic scientists make these decisions to better understand how we can train and select forensic examiners in the future to increase professional performance.

I aim to develop training programs in my work to train current forensic scientists, and work out ways to select forensic experts in the future. I am keen to work with Postgraduate students in investigating these ideas and developing evidence-based ways to improve performance in forensic science.

Subject Area: Disciplines

  • Psychology: Cognitive Psychology; Forensic Psychology

Research/Scholarly/Creative Works

Journal Articles
  • Growns B., Gough M. and Helm RK. (2023) Generalisability and stability of visual comparison ability. Applied Cognitive Psychology http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/acp.4127.
  • Growns B., Kukucka J., Moorhead R. and Helm RK. (2023) The Post Office Scandal in the United Kingdom: Mental health and social experiences of wrongly convicted and wrongly accused individuals. Legal and Criminological Psychology http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/lcrp.12247.
  • Growns B., Towler A. and Martire K. (2023) Correction to: The novel object-matching test (NOM Test): A psychometric measure of visual comparison ability (Behavior Research Methods, (2023), 10.3758/s13428-023-02069-6). Behavior Research Methods http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13428-023-02154-w.
  • Growns B., Towler A. and Martire K. (2023) The novel object-matching test (NOM Test): A psychometric measure of visual comparison ability. Behavior Research Methods http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13428-023-02069-6.
  • Helm RK. and Growns B. (2023) Predicting and projecting memory: Error and bias in metacognitive judgements underlying testimony evaluation. Legal and Criminological Psychology 28(1): 15-33. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/lcrp.12232.
  • Wilson-Kovacs D., Helm R., Growns B. and Redfern L. (2023) Digital evidence in defence practice: Prevalence, challenges and expertise. International Journal of Evidence and Proof 27(3): 235-253. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/13657127231171620.
  • Chin JM., Growns B., Sebastian J., Page MJ. and Nakagawa S. (2022) The transparency and reproducibility of systematic reviews in forensic science. Forensic Science International 340 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forsciint.2022.111472.
  • Growns B., Dunn JD., Helm RK., Towler A. and Kukucka J. (2022) The low prevalence effect in fingerprint comparison amongst forensic science trainees and novices. PLoS ONE 17(8 August) http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272338.
  • Growns B., Dunn JD., Mattijssen EJAT., Quigley-McBride A. and Towler A. (2022) Match me if you can: Evidence for a domain-general visual comparison ability. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 29(3): 866-881. http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13423-021-02044-2.
  • Growns B., Mattijssen EJAT., Salerno JM., Schweitzer NJ., Cole SA. and Martire KA. (2022) Finding the Perfect Match: Fingerprint Expertise Facilitates Statistical Learning and Visual Comparison Decision-Making. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xap0000422.
  • Growns B., Towler A., Dunn JD., Salerno JM., Schweitzer NJ. and Dror IE. (2022) Statistical feature training improves fingerprint-matching accuracy in novices and professional fingerprint examiners. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications 7(1) http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s41235-022-00413-6.
  • Ritchie KL., Cartledge C., Growns B., Yan A., Wang Y., Guo K., Kramer RSS., Edmond G., Martire KA. and Roque MS. (2021) Public attitudes towards the use of automatic facial recognition technology in criminal justice systems around the world. PLoS ONE 16(10 October) http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258241.
  • Growns B. and Martire KA. (2020) Human factors in forensic science: The cognitive mechanisms that underlie forensic feature-comparison expertise. Forensic Science International: Synergy 2: 148-153. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fsisyn.2020.05.001.
  • Growns B., Siegelman N. and Martire KA. (2020) The multi-faceted nature of visual statistical learning: Individual differences in learning conditional and distributional regularities across time and space. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 27(6): 1291-1299. http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13423-020-01781-0.
  • Martire KA., Growns B., Bali AS., Montgomery-Farrer B., Summersby S. and Younan M. (2020) Limited not lazy: a quasi-experimental secondary analysis of evidence quality evaluations by those who hold implausible beliefs. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications 5(1) http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s41235-020-00264-z.
  • Growns B., Kinner SA., Conroy E., Baldry E. and Larney S. (2018) A Systematic Review of Supported Accommodation Programs for People Released From Custody. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 62(8): 2174-2194. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0306624X17714108.
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