Forensic thinking and multidisciplinary approach to studying it

Introduction. It has become necessary for criminalistics to study thinking processes leading to the results which are important for criminalistics and criminal procedure. The paper attempts to systematize and analyze the approaches to studying certain aspects of forensic thinking. Materials and Methods. The following psychological and sociological methods were used: questionnaires for and interviewing of practical investigators of the Investigative Committee and police and forensic examiners (66 respondents). 214 criminal cases were analyzed in order to reveal different approaches to the solution of stereotypical tasks and identify features of mistakes. Results and Discussion. The analysis of criminal cases demonstrates the difference of criminal procedural results of investigation conducted by different investigators, and, thus, it is possible to observe the different level of development of forensic thinking among the mentioned subjects. Forensic thinking must be examined from different aspects as a complex phenomenon, and some of its methods and approaches originating in other fields of knowledge must be explored as well. No effective study of forensic thinking is available without enhanced knowledge of logical rules of criminalistics search and assessment of evidence. Psychological methods can help in studying such a phenomenon as investigator’s intuition. Learning the principles of functioning of artificial intelligence based on artificial neural networks will increase understanding of forensic thinking. Conclusions. Forensic thinking is a complex of personal characteristics of a subject who learns and means of cognitive activity enabling the subject to perceive and process fragmented, incomplete information in order to reveal and explain failures in cause and effect relationship. Acknowledgement. The author expresses his deep gratitude to Leonid Yakovlevich Drapkin, his research supervisor, Doctor of Juridical Sciences, and the personnel of the Department of Criminalistics of Ural State Law University for their assistance in the organization of the research and constructive recommendations.