The Impact of Fatigue on Decision‐Making in the Footwear Examination: Evidence from Questionnaires and Eye‐Tracking Test

To assess the influence of fatigue on decision-making and performance in footwear examination, questionnaires and eye-tracking techniques are employed. We ask 23 volunteers to wear shoes of four different outsole patterns and obtained 50 image pairs of questioned and known impressions under controlled conditions. Among which, 10 image sets were "repeated" as benchmarks by being horizontally flipped. To evaluate the accuracy of comparison, 12 qualified footwear examiners' response and eye metrics in both morning and afternoon session were recorded and analyzed by descriptive statistics, correlation analysis and gaze plots. The results revealed that as a group there is no significant statistic differences in either subjects' behavioral performance or their eye gaze data after fatigue. When examined via the Earth Mover Metric method, the consistency of examiners as a group did not change after fatigue either. Statistically, the pupil size got smaller during the observation in the afternoon. Study also demonstrated that the visualization process of forensic footwear evidence through eye-tracking method could be a promising technique for training and education.