Braun, Sandra; Schwendener, Nicole; Kanz, Fabian; Lösch, Sandra; Milella, Marco (2023). What we see is what we touch? Sex estimation on the pelvis in virtual anthropology. International journal of legal medicine, 137(6), pp. 1839-1852. Springer 10.1007/s00414-023-03034-w
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BACKGROUND
Computed tomography (CT) scans are a convenient means to study 3D reconstructions of bones. However, errors associated with the different nature of the observation, e.g. visual and tactile (on dry bone) versus visual only (on a screen) have not been thoroughly investigated.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
We quantified the errors between modalities for sex estimation protocols of nonmetric (categorical and ordinal) and metric data, using 200 dry pelves of archaeological origin and the CT reconstructions of the same bones. In addition, we 3D surface scanned a subsample of 39 pelves to compare observations with dry bone and CT data. We did not focus on the sex estimation accuracy but solely on the consistency of the scoring, hence, the interchangeability of the modalities.
RESULTS
Metric data yielded the most consistent results. Among the nonmetric protocols, ordinal data performed better than categorical data. We applied a slightly modified description for the trait with the highest errors and grouped the traits according to consistency and availability in good, intermediate, and poor.
DISCUSSION
The investigated modalities were interchangeable as long as the trait definition was not arbitrary. Dry bone (gold standard) performed well, and CT and 3D surface scans performed better. We recommend researchers test their affinity for using virtual modalities. Future studies could use our consistency analysis and combine the best traits, validating their accuracy on various modalities.
Item Type: |
Journal Article (Original Article) |
|---|---|
Division/Institute: |
04 Faculty of Medicine > Service Sector > Institute of Legal Medicine 04 Faculty of Medicine > Service Sector > Institute of Legal Medicine > Anthropology |
Graduate School: |
Graduate School for Cellular and Biomedical Sciences (GCB) |
UniBE Contributor: |
Braun, Sandra, Schwendener, Nicole, Lösch, Sandra, Milella, Marco |
Subjects: |
500 Science > 570 Life sciences; biology 600 Technology > 610 Medicine & health |
ISSN: |
1437-1596 |
Publisher: |
Springer |
Language: |
English |
Submitter: |
Pubmed Import |
Date Deposited: |
20 Jun 2023 11:48 |
Last Modified: |
12 Oct 2023 00:13 |
Publisher DOI: |
10.1007/s00414-023-03034-w |
PubMed ID: |
37336820 |
Uncontrolled Keywords: |
Computed tomography DSP2 Forensic anthropology Metric Nonmetric Surface scan |
BORIS DOI: |
10.48350/183547 |
URI: |
https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/183547 |
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