Forensic facial examiners versus super‐recognizers: Evaluating behavior beyond accuracy

Abstract

We evaluated the detailed, behavioral properties of face matching performance in two specialist groups: forensic facial examiners and super-recognizers. Both groups compare faces to determine identity with high accuracy and outperform the general population. Typically, facial examiners are highly trained; super-recognizers rely on natural ability. We found distinct behaviors between these two groups. Facial examiners took advantage of the full 7-point identity judgment scale; super-recognizers' judgments clustered toward highly confident decisions. Facial examiners' identity judgments for same-identities and different-identities mirrored each other; those from super-recognizers did not. Facial examiners showed higher identity judgment agreement than super-recognizers. Despite these qualitative differences, both groups showed insight into their own accuracy: more confident people and those who rated the task to be easier tended to be more accurate. These findings show that to better understand and interpret judgments according to the nature of someone's facial expertise, evaluations should assess more than accuracy.

Selecting police super-recognisers

“…This suggests that super-recognisers could be selected for forensic examiner roles, but it remains unclear whether they would be amenable to forensic training (see 35, 50 for reviews). In separate work, we have also found evidence that SRs tend to make more high confidence errors relative to facial examiners [ 23 , 30 ]. This points to another important reason to test SR performance in detail after receiving training–to examine whether this overconfidence is attenuated by training and experience.…”

“…[ 27 – 29 ]). Other studies have compared super-recognisers selected from the general population to existing professional cohorts of forensic facial examiners and found equivalent accuracy [ 3 , 23 , 30 ]. This work points to the potential for super-recognisers to improve accuracy in forensic settings.…”

The effect of facial ageing on forensic facial image comparison

“…In addition, examiners made fewer high confidence errors than controls, complementing findings from Phillips et al (2018) who also found that forensic professionals tend not to make high confidence decisions (also see Norell et al, 2015). This is also in contrast to super‐recognisers who tend to make more high confidence errors and use the response scale differently to forensic examiners (also see Towler et al, 2023 Hahn et al, 2022). One possibility is that examiners have a better understanding of how to use the response scale effectively, potentially because of the consequences associated with decisions in professional settings.…”