The effects of movement on the recognition of famous faces shown in difficult conditions were investigated. Images were presented as negatives, upside down (inverted), and thresholded. Results indicate that, under all these conditions, moving faces were recognized significantly better than static ones. One possible explanation of this effect could be that a moving sequence contains more static information about the different views and expressions of the face than does a single static image. However, even when the amount of static information was equated (Experiments 3 and 4), there was still an advantage for moving sequences that contained their original dynamic properties. The results suggest that the dynamics of the motion provide additional information, helping to access an established familiar face representation. Both the theoretical and the practical implications for these findings are discussed.

Summary: There are large individual differences in the ability to recognise faces. Super-recognisers are exceptionally good at face memory tasks. In London, a small specialist pool of police officers (also labelled 'super-recognisers' by the Metropolitan Police Service) annually makes 1000's of suspect identifications from closed-circuit television footage. Some suspects are disguised, have not been encountered recently or are depicted in poor quality images. Across tests measuring familiar face recognition, unfamiliar face memory and unfamiliar face matching, the accuracy of members of this specialist police pool was approximately equal to a group of non-police super-recognisers. Both groups were more accurate than matched control members of the public. No reliable relationships were found between the face processing tests and object recognition. Within each group, however, there were large performance variations across tests, and this research has implications for the deployment of police worldwide in operations requiring officers with superior face processing ability

Two experiments are reported that assess how well the identity of highly familiar "famous# faces can be masked from short naturalistic television clips[ Recognition of identity was made more di.cult by either pixelating "Experiment 0# or blurring "Experiment 1# the viewed face[ Participants were asked to identify faces from both moving and static clips[ Results indicated that participants were still able to recognize some of the viewed faces\ despite these image degradations[ In addition\ moving images of faces were recognized better than static ones[ The practical and theoretical implications of these _ndings are discussed[ Copyright Þ 1990 John Wiley + Sons\ Ltd[ Correspondence to] Karen Lander\ Department of Psychology\ University of Stirling\ Stirling FK8 3LA\ UK[ E!mail] kl2Ýstir[ac[uk Contract grant sponsor] University of Stirling[ Contract grant sponsor] ESRC[ Contract grant number] R999 12 55 77[ 0 In both experiments reported\ famous faces rather than personally familiar ones have been used[ Personally familiar faces have typically been viewed in person on many occasions[ Famous face identity is much more likely to be learned from a small number of {stereotypical| instances[ Despite this di}erence\ a number of experimental studies have found no qualitative di}erence between the processing of personally familiar and famous faces "see Campbell and De Haan\ 0887^Roberts and Bruce\ 0878#[

No abstract

No abstract