Four heads are better than one: Combining face composites yields improvements in face likeness.

Bruce, Vicki; Ness, Hayley; Hancock, Peter; Newman, Craig W.; Rarity, Jenny

doi:10.1037/0021-9010.87.5.894

Cited by 76 publications

(128 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Brace, Pike, Kemp, 2000;Bruce, Ness, Hancock, Newman & Rarity, 2002;Davies, Van der Willik & Morrison, 2000;Frowd, Bruce, Ness et al, 2007;Frowd, Skelton, Butt, Hassan, & Fields, 2011). When the retention interval is up to a few hours in duration, for example, composites are named with a mean accuracy of around 10 to 20%.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Whole-face procedures for recovering facial images from memory

et al. 2013

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Research has indicated that traditional methods for accessing facial memories usually yield unidentifiable images. Recent research, however, has made important improvements in this area to the witness interview, method used for constructing the face and recognition of finished composites. Here, we investigated whether three of these improvements would produce even-more recognisable images when used in conjunction with each other. The techniques are holistic in nature: they involve processes which operate on an entire face. Forty participants first inspected an unfamiliar target face. Nominally 24h later, they were interviewed using a standard type of cognitive interview (CI) to recall the appearance of the target, or an enhanced 'holistic' interview where the CI was followed by procedures for focussing on the target's character. Participants then constructed a composite using EvoFIT, a recognition-type system that requires repeatedly selecting items from face arrays, with 'breeding', to 'evolve' a composite. They either saw faces in these arrays with blurred external features, or an enhanced method where these faces were presented with masked external features. Then, further participants attempted to name the composites, first by looking at the face front-on, the normal method, and then for a second time by looking at the face side-on, which research demonstrates facilitates recognition. All techniques improved correct naming on their own, but together promoted highly-recognisable composites with mean naming at 74% correct. The implication is that these techniques, if used together by practitioners, should substantially increase the detection of suspects using this forensic method of person identification

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Whole-face procedures for recovering facial images from memory

et al. 2013

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“…These studies have found that E-FIT and PRO-fit produce composites that are correctly named about 20% of the time when participant-witnesses attempt construction either immediately or a few hours after seeing a target face (Brace et al 2000, Bruce et al 2002, Davies et al 2000, Frowd et al 2004, 2005b, 2007a, 2007b. Unfortunately, when participant-witnesses are required to wait two days prior to construction, a situation typical of real witnesses, composite naming normally falls to a few percent correct at best (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An evaluation of US systems for facial composite production

et al. 2007

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Witness and victims of serious crime are normally requested to construct a facial composite of a suspect's face. While modern systems for constructing composites have been evaluated extensively in the UK, this is not the case in the US. In the current work, two popular computerized systems in the US, FACES and Identikit 2000, were evaluated against a 'reference' system, PRO-fit, where performance is established. In Experiment 1, witnesses constructed a composite with both PRO-fit and FACES using a realistic procedure. The resulting composites were very poorly named, but the PRO-fit emerged best in 'cued' naming and two supplementary measures: composite sorting and likeness ratings. In Experiment 2, PRO-fit was compared with Identikit 2000, a sketch-like feature system. Spontaneous naming was again very poor, but both cued naming and sorting suggested that the systems were similar. The results support previous findings that modern systems do not produce identifiable composites.

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“…This is a sensible finding because age range would contribute to variability for the reasons stated earlier in this section -more time allows for more natural and lifestyle changes in facial appearance. Importantly, morphs produced more similar depictions than average ratings collapsed across all artists, likely because morphs minimized idiosyncratic features depicted by individual artists as in composite sketches [3]. This indirectly indicates that inter-artist reliability for images of the same targets negatively affects target similarity.…”

Section: Natural and Lifestyle Factors Over Timementioning

confidence: 98%

“…Comments on an early draft of this paper were that, given that our stimuli rendered only Caucasian faces, non-Caucasians may perceive 3 Interpretation of effect sizes are taken from Cohen [5], such that small η them in a different way than Caucasians (e.g., featurally vs. holistically) and this could affect the interpretability of our results. The number of non-Caucasians (N = 13) was too small to directly compare responses by race, but we could estimate the effect by re-analyzing the data without these participants and observing whether the effects and patterns change.…”

Section: Cross-race Concernsmentioning

confidence: 99%

When age-progressed images are unreliable: The roles of external features and age range

et al. 2017

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When children go missing for many years, investigators commission age-progressed images from forensic artists to depict an updated appearance. These images have anecdotal success, and systematic research has found they lead to accurate recognition rates comparable to outdated photos. The present study examines the reliability of age progressions of the same individuals created by different artists. Eight artists first generated age progressions of eight targets across three age ranges. Eighty-five participants then evaluated the similarity of these images against other images depicting the same targets progressed at the same age ranges, viewing either whole faces or faces with external features concealed. Similarities were highest over shorter age ranges and when external features were concealed. Implications drawn from theory and application are discussed.

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Four heads are better than one: Combining face composites yields improvements in face likeness.

Cited by 76 publications

References 15 publications

Whole-face procedures for recovering facial images from memory

Whole-face procedures for recovering facial images from memory

An evaluation of US systems for facial composite production

When age-progressed images are unreliable: The roles of external features and age range

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