NCJ Number
201543
Journal
Journal of Forensic Sciences Volume: 48 Issue: 4 Dated: July 2003 Pages: 725-727
Date Published
July 2003
Length
3 pages
Annotation
This research study addressed methods of predicting mouth width from inter-canine width.
Abstract
Facial approximation is a technique used to build people’s faces from their skeletal remains. Traditional techniques have predicted mouth width from the skull by assessing pupil width, medical iris width, and width between the lateral aspects of the canines. Improvements upon these traditional techniques have suggested that because any error in eyeball positioning will result in inaccurate mouth width estimation, it is important to correctly assess the central positioning of the eyeball. No current consensus has been reached concerning the accuracy of central eyeball placement in orbit since few systematic empirical studies have been conducted. Current researchers argue that a good approach to predicting mouth width is to rely on known bony landmarks instead of focusing entirely on pupil positioning. Data collected by C. N. Stephan are analyzed in this article. Results suggest that estimating mouth width using the canine teeth alone, is likely the best guideline for use in facial approximation. References