Face recognition

Question 1

What is Person Identification?

Answer 1

It involves the cognitive task of face recognition.
Police have a suspect who they believe committed the crime, ∴ the eyewitness has to identity them.

Question 2

What is Suspect Identification?

Answer 2

It involves the cognitive task of face recall.
Police don’t have a suspect but they have a eyewitness, ∴ they have to provide information that could help.

Question 3

What are Event/Estimator variables?

Answer 3

They are variables that are include facets of the crime itself and are outside the control of the criminal justice system.
e.g. the vicitms and witnesses.

Question 4

What are System variables?

Answer 4

They are variables that are under the control of the criminal justice system. These include line-up instructions and construction systems.

Question 5

What are the 3 main methods that is used for Line-ups?

Answer 5

• group line-ups
• live line-ups
• video identification parades

Question 6

What are the PACE (Police and Criminal Evidence) guidelines?

Answer 6

• Video ID parades contains 8 volunteers (innocent foils) + the suspect
• Each clip must be viewed individually
• Simultaneous - a relative judgement
• Sequential - an absolute judgement
• Witness must view twice before decision

Question 7

What are the evidence for the face processing distinction? (Person identification)

Answer 7

• Prosopagnosia - cannot recognise their closest relatives or at times themselves
• Double dissociation - some participants (classic prosopagnosia) could recognise familiar faces but couldn’t recognise unfamiliar faces as faces
• Featural vs holistic processing - when you look at a face it is processed a holistic (as one whole face)

Question 8

What are some disadvantages for familiar face processing? (Person identification)

Answer 8

• Not universal
• Prone to errors
• Contextual

Question 9

What can make unfamiliar face processing harder? (Person identification)

Answer 9

If there are changes in:
- Expression
- Angle of view
- Lighting conditions
- Changes in image medium
It is prone to error.

Question 10

What are the 3 main ways to capture a suspect’s image?

Answer 10

• Police sketch artist
  (which entirely depends on the skills of the artist nd the description from the witness)
• Identikit
  (which is slow and ineffective)
• Photo-Fit
  (advantage- there are Lots of exemplars available)
  (disadvantage - different skin tones on final image)

Question 11

What is the new edition of the Photo-Fit?

Answer 11

It is the E-Fit.
It has the benefit of viewing an entire face rather than parts of it. It is a computerised version. It is based on the cognitive task of face recall.