Alex H. McIntyre

The relative importance of external and internal features of facial composites

Three experiments are reported that compare the quality of external with internal regions within a set of facial composites using two matching-type tasks. Composites are constructed with the aim of triggering recognition from people familiar with the targets, and past research suggests internal face features dominate representations of familiar faces in memory. However the experiments reported here show that the internal regions of composites are very poorly matched against the faces they purport to represent, while external feature regions alone were matched almost as well as complete composites. In Experiments 1 and 2 the composites used were constructed by participant-witnesses who were unfamiliar with the targets and therefore were predicted to demonstrate a bias towards the external parts of a face. In Experiment 3 we compared witnesses who were familiar or unfamiliar with the target items, but for both groups the external features were much better reproduced in the composites, suggesting it is the process of composite construction itself which is responsible for the poverty of the internal features. Practical implications of these results are discussed.

Registered Replication Report

Trying to remember something now typically improves your ability to remember it later. However, after watching a video of a simulated bank robbery, participants who verbally described the robber were 25% worse at identifying the robber in a lineup than were participants who instead listed U.S. states and capitals—this has been termed the “verbal overshadowing” effect (Schooler & Engstler-Schooler, 1990). More recent studies suggested that this effect might be substantially smaller than first reported. Given uncertainty about the effect size, the influence of this finding in the memory literature, and its practical importance for police procedures, we conducted two collections of preregistered direct replications (RRR1 and RRR2) that differed only in the order of the description task and a filler task. In RRR1, when the description task immediately followed the robbery, participants who provided a description were 4% less likely to select the robber than were those in the control condition. In RRR2, when the description was delayed by 20 min, they were 16% less likely to select the robber. These findings reveal a robust verbal overshadowing effect that is strongly influenced by the relative timing of the tasks. The discussion considers further implications of these replications for our understanding of verbal overshadowing.

An application of caricature : How to improve the recognition of facial composites

Facial caricatures exaggerate the distinctive features of a face and may elevate the recognition of a familiar face. We investigate whether the recognition of facial composites, or pictures of criminal faces, could be similarly enhanced. In this study, participants first estimated the degree of caricature necessary to make composites most identifiable. Contrary to expectation, an anticaricature was found to be best, presumably as this tended to reduce the appearance of errors. In support of this explanation, more positive caricature estimates were assigned to morphed composites: representations that tend to contain less overall error. In addition, anticaricaturing reduced identification for morphed composites but enhanced identification for individual composites. Although such improvements were too small to be of value to law enforcement, a sizeable naming benefit was observed when presenting a range of caricature states, which appeared to capitalize on individual differences in the internal representation of familiar faces.

Registered Replication Report: Schooler and Engstler-Schooler (1990).

Trying to remember something now typically improves your ability to remember it later. However, after watching a video of a simulated bank robbery, participants who verbally described the robber were 25% worse at identifying the robber in a lineup than were participants who instead listed U.S. states and capitals—this has been termed the “verbal overshadowing” effect (Schooler & Engstler-Schooler, 1990). More recent studies suggested that this effect might be substantially smaller than first reported. Given uncertainty about the effect size, the influence of this finding in the memory literature, and its practical importance for police procedures, we conducted two collections of preregistered direct replications (RRR1 and RRR2) that differed only in the order of the description task and a filler task. In RRR1, when the description task immediately followed the robbery, participants who provided a description were 4% less likely to select the robber than were those in the control condition. In RRR2, when the description was delayed by 20 min, they were 16% less likely to select the robber. These findings reveal a robust verbal overshadowing effect that is strongly influenced by the relative timing of the tasks. The discussion considers further implications of these replications for our understanding of verbal overshadowing.

Giving Crime the 'evo': Catching Criminals Using EvoFIT Facial Composites

Facial composites are traditionally made by witnesses and victims describing and selecting parts of criminals’ faces, but this method is hard to do and has been shown to be generally ineffective. We have been working on an alternative system called EvoFIT for the past 12 years. Much of the development for this system has been carried out in the laboratory but, more recently, police forces have been formally evaluating it in criminal investigations. The current paper describes three of these police audits. It was found that EvoFIT composites made from real eyewitnesses led to an overall arrest in 23.4% of cases, which is similar to a 24.5% correct naming level found by laboratory research. System performance therefore appears to be effective both using simulated testing procedures and in the hands of the intended user.

A decade of evolving composites: regression and meta-analysis.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of seven variables that emerge from forensic research on facial-composite construction and naming using contemporary police systems: EvoFIT, Feature and Sketch. Design/methodology/approach – The paper involves regression- and meta-analyses on composite-naming data from 23 studies that have followed procedures used by police practitioners for forensic face construction. The corpus for analyses contains 6,464 individual naming responses from 1,069 participants in 41 experimental conditions. Findings – The analyses reveal that composites constructed from the holistic EvoFIT system were over four-times more identifiable than composites from “Feature” (E-FIT and PRO-fit) and Sketch systems; Sketch was somewhat more effective than Feature systems. EvoFIT was more effective when internal features were created before rather than after selecting hair and the other (blurred) external features. Adding questions about the global appearance of the face (as pa...

Understanding the multiframe caricature advantage for recognizing facial composites

Eyewitnesses often construct a “composite” face of a person they saw commit a crime, a picture that police use to identify suspects. We described a technique (Frowd, Bruce, Ross, McIntyre, & Hancock, 2007) based on facial caricature to facilitate recognition of these images: Correct naming substantially improves when composites are seen with progressive positive caricature, where distinctive information is enhanced, and then with progressive negative caricature, the opposite. Over the course of four experiments, the underpinnings of this mechanism were explored. Positive-caricature levels were found to be largely responsible for improving naming of composites, with some benefit from negative-caricature levels. Also, different frame-presentation orders (forward, reverse, random, repeated) facilitated equivalent naming benefit relative to static composites. Overall, the data indicate that composites are usually constructed as negative caricatures.

Developmentally distinct gaze processing systems: Luminance versus geometric cues

Two experiments examined how the different cues to gaze direction contribute to childrens abilities to follow and make explicit judgements about gaze. In each study participants were shown blurred images of faces containing only luminance cues to gaze direction, line-drawn images containing only fine-grained detail supporting a geometric analysis of gaze direction, and unmanipulated images. In Experiment 1a, 2- and 3-year olds showed gaze-cued orienting of attention in response to unmanipulated and blurred faces, but not line-drawn faces. Adult participants showed cueing effects to line drawn faces as well as the other two types of face cue in Experiment 1b. In Experiment 2, 2-year-olds were poor at judging towards which of four objects blurred and line-drawn faces were gazing, whereas 3- and 4-year-olds performed above chance with these faces. All age groups performed above chance with unmanipulated images. These findings are consistent with an early-developing luminance-based mechanism, which supports gaze following, but which cannot initially support explicit judgements, and a later-developing mechanism, additionally using geometric cues in the eye, which supports explicit judgements about gaze.

Holistic face processing can inhibit recognition of forensic facial composites.

Facial composite systems help eyewitnesses to show the appearance of criminals. However, likenesses created by unfamiliar witnesses will not be completely accurate, and people familiar with the target can find them difficult to identify. Faces are processed holistically; we explore whether this impairs identification of inaccurate composite images and whether recognition can be improved. In Experiment 1 (n = 64) an imaging technique was used to make composites of celebrity faces more accurate and identification was contrasted with the original composite images. Corrected composites were better recognized, confirming that errors in production of the likenesses impair identification. The influence of holistic face processing was explored by misaligning the top and bottom parts of the composites (cf. Young, Hellawell, & Hay, 1987). Misalignment impaired recognition of corrected composites but identification of the original, inaccurate composites significantly improved. This effect was replicated with facial composites of noncelebrities in Experiment 2 (n = 57). We conclude that, like real faces, facial composites are processed holistically: recognition is impaired because unlike real faces, composites contain inaccuracies and holistic face processing makes it difficult to perceive identifiable features. This effect was consistent across composites of celebrities and composites of people who are personally familiar. Our findings suggest that identification of forensic facial composites can be enhanced by presenting composites in a misaligned format.

Seeing More Clearly with Glasses?: The Impact of Glasses and Technology on Unfamiliar Face Matching and Identification of Facial Composites

The development of facial identification technologies is of vital importance for security. We demonstrate that psychology can ensure innovation produces applications with effective human outcomes. Experiments 1a-c show spectacle removal imaging techniques that enhance automated face matching, can seriously impair accuracy if employed within a human interface. Experiment 2 shows how understanding and working with human perceptual strategies can optimize identification of facial composites.