Eyewitness descriptions without memory: The (f)utility of describing faces

Abstract

Eyewitness descriptions provide critical information for the police and other agencies to use during investigations. While researchers have typically considered the impact of memory, little consideration has been given to the utility of facial descriptions themselves, without the additional memory demands. In Experiment 1, participants described face images to their partners, who were then required to select these faces from photographic lineups. Performance was error-prone when the same image appeared in the lineup (73% correct), and decreased further when a different image of the same face was presented (22% correct). We found some evidence to suggest this was due, in part, to difficulties with recognizing that two different images depicted the same person. In Experiment 2, we demonstrated that descriptions of the same face given by different people showed only moderate agreement. Taken together, these results highlight the problematic nature of facial descriptions, even without memory, and their limited utility. K E Y W O R D S agreement, eyewitness, face matching, facial descriptions, memory

Let's talk about faces: Identifying faces from verbal descriptions

“…Prior work in this area shows above‐chance identification performance based on verbal descriptions (Fallshore & Schooler, 1995 ; Kramer & Gous, 2020 ). Study 1 improved understanding of face communication by showing that difficulties in describing faces for identification purposes are not ameliorated by allowing naturalistic communication.…”

“…To our knowledge, this is the first set of studies to explore how individual differences in face perception relate to face communication. Prior work has focused on the accuracy of face communication (Fallshore & Schooler, 1995 ; Kramer & Gous, 2020 ). Here, we found that face identification skill contributed to variance in face communication performance.…”

“…This extends work by Ritchie et al ( 2022 ) who found no relationship between facial features discussed and the accuracy of dyads on a face‐matching task when both images were in view simultaneously. In the context of face communication specifically, Kramer and Gous ( 2020 ) found that discussion of the eyes, nose, mouth, hair, ears and face shape were not associated with identification accuracy. That accuracy was similarly not associated with the discussion of other facial features in our study (e.g., facial hair, jawline, cheeks, facial marks) shows that the inclusion/exclusion of particular facial features in face descriptions is not what makes them effective for identification purposes.…”

“…Relying solely on this facial description, identifier participants selected the correct face at accuracy levels barely above chance (27%). More recently, the utility of face descriptions for identification purposes was investigated in a live matching context (Kramer & Gous, 2020 ). Here, ‘describers’ generated descriptions of faces in real‐time to ‘identifiers’, who used the description to identify the relevant person from a 10‐person line‐up.…”

“…However, all existing studies in the domain of face communication have constrained the exchange of information between individuals to be unidirectional, from describer to identifier (Fallshore & Schooler, 1995 ; Kramer & Gous, 2020 ). This prevents reciprocal dialogue between the describer and identifier, for example where an identifier might seek clarification about aspects of the description which were unclear or ambiguous.…”