Validation studies on gender determination from fingerprints with special emphasis on ridge characteristics

Abstract

Background: The present work investigates the ridge characteristics and ridge density of fingerprints to determine gender differences among population of Punjab. The main characteristics studied were general pattern type, ridge density and minutiae or ridge characteristics with respect to general pattern type. Further, instead of using conventional method of ridge counting, Adobe Photoshop cs5 is used to conclude ridge density and minutiae characteristics. Experimental results shows, along with ridge density, minutiae characteristics procure special importance in determining the gender from fingerprints. Results: The results suggest that mean ridge density in males is 12.32 ridges/25mm 2, where as it was 13.94 ridges/ 25mm 2 in females. The study has supported the hypothesis that women tend to have thin ridges i.e. more ridge density as compared to men. The study of minutiae or ridge characteristics revealed that frequency of ridge ending (50.24 index fingers, 50.62 middle fingers) and enclosures (2.87% in index and 3.08% in middle finger) is higher in females as compared to males. Further significant gender difference has been observed in minutiae characteristics with respect to general pattern type. Among both genders; males tend to have more number of minutiae as compared to females in case of loop and whorl as general pattern type. In case of Arch pattern females tends to have more number of minutiae as compared to males. Conclusions: The research carried by the authors of this paper synchronizes with the findings of other researchers despite differences in populations selected. More number of minutiae and ridges were found in case of females as compared to male fingerprints. In the present study an attempt has been made to validate the method by analyzing the blind samples which likewise showed more number of minutiae in case of females as compared to males. Although the study agrees with common theory of more ridge details in females as compared to males, yet low success rate in case of blind trial has unveiled further scope of research required to determine gender from fingerprints found at scene of crime or disputed documents.

Identification of sex using discriminant function analysis of fingerprint ridge density at three topological areas among North Indian population

“…In this study, fingerprint ridge density of females in a given area was significantly higher than their male counterparts at all three counting regions of both hands as is evident from Mann Whitney U test. Our findings correlated with the results of various national and international studies on different populations (Gungadin 2007;Nayak et al 2010;Nithin et al 2011;Gutierrez-Redomero et al 2013;Kumar et al 2013;Rivalderia et al 2015;Thakar et al 2018;Kaur & Kaur 2019). A study of Ceyhan and Sagiroglu (2017) also determined sex using ridge density in the upper right corner of fingertips in the Turkish population.…”

“…A study by Acree (1999) identified for the first time the sex of individuals in Caucasian and African American populations from fingerprint ridge density, which was ascertained by diagonally counting numbers of ridges within a defined area in radial region of distal phalanges of fingertip. Thereafter, numerous cross-sectional studies were performed to explain the variability in fingerprint ridge density with respect to sex (Agnihotri et al 2012;Ahmed and Osman 2016;Thakar et al 2018;Kaur and Kaur 2019) and topological area (Gutierrez-Redomero et al 2008;Nanakorn and Kutanan 2012;Soanboon et al 2016;Wahdan and Khalifa 2017;Kaur and Kaur 2019) which is crucial from anthropological, and forensic fields of study.…”

“…Earlier studies in this field established that females had higher ridge density and narrower ridges in a defined area as compared to their male counterparts. These considerations have prompted our study for investigating fingerprint ridge densi-ty in an Indian population, as there are few studies (Kapoor and Badiye 2015;Sharma et al 2018, Thakar et al 2018Kaur and Kaur 2019) conducted on this population. Hence, the aim of the present study was to identify sex using fingerprint ridge density at radial, ulnar and proximal areas of distal phalanges of adult population of district Uttarkashi (North India).…”

Interpol review of fingermarks and other body impressions 2016–2019

“…Gender determination based on general pattern or ridge density is not new, although the power of these inferences is rather limited when dealing with partial, smudged marks recovered from crime scenes. The frequencies of minutiae have been added to the set of predictors recently [ 24 ]. Differences in number of minutiae and type have been reported in the past as well.…”

Fingerprint Ridge Density Of Convicted Male And Females Prisoners : A Pilot Study

“…Thereafter, a plethora of studies [4][5][6][7][8][9][10] have established the sex differences with respect to fingerprint ridge density in different populations, but till date very limited work has been carried out to highlight this aspect on convicted criminals. In a recent study, while analysing an association and individualization of dermal digital ridge density of a male penal population Kaur and Sharma 11 demonstrated that prisoner male have ridge density less than 12 ridges and higher than 15 ridges.…”