Instantaneous readouts of an electrical resistivity probe are taken in an upward vertical air-water mixture. The signals are further processed to render the statistical moments and the probability density functions here used as objective flow pattern indicators. A series of 73 experimental runs have its flow pattern identified by visual inspection assisted by the analyses of the void fraction's trace and associated probability density function. The flow patterns are classified into six groups and labeled as: bubbly, spherical cap, slug, unstable slug, semi-annular and annular. This work compares and analyzes the performance of artificial neural networks, ANN, and expert systems to flow pattern identification. The employed ANNs are Multiple Layer Perceptrons, Radial Basis Functions and Probabilistic Neural Network. with single and multiple outputs. The performance is gauged by the percentage of right identifications based on experimental observation. The analysis is extended to clustering algorithms to assist the formation of knowledge base employed during the learning stages of the ANNs and expert systems. The performance of the following clustering algorithms: self organized maps. K-means and Fuzzy C-means are also tested against experimental data. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.