How time pressure and fingerprint complexity affect fingerprint examiner performance in an Eye Tracking Study

• Time pressure affected fingerprint examination performance. • Task difficulty moderated the influence of time pressure. • Eye movement data during fingerprint identification were collected to infer their cognitive strategies. • Under time pressure, fingerprint experts adopted simple heuristic strategies. • Without time pressure, fingerprint experts adopted complex analytical strategies. • Simple heuristic strategies led to more accurate decisions for less difficult tasks. • For more difficult tasks, time pressure weakened accuracy. We conducted two experiments to examine the effects of time pressure and task difficulty on the strategies used and task accuracy during fingerprint examination. In Experiment I, we collected behavior and eye movement data from 31 fingerprint examiners in conditions with and without time pressure. In Experiment II, we used the same procedure but added a task difficulty variable. The results showed that, in contrast to the trials without time pressure, the fingerprint examiners used an observation mode with decreased fixation time and made fewer mistakes (stronger discriminability and higher response criterion) when under time pressure (Experiment I). This pattern was only observed when the task was less difficult. When the task was more difficult (Experiment II), the examiners tended to adopt an observation mode with more fixation counts, and time pressure weakened the accuracy of their performance. In conclusion, time pressure can influence decision-making by affecting the cognitive strategies used during fingerprint examination. And task difficulty has a moderating effect on the influence of time pressure.