Improving Discrimination and Face Matching with Caricature

Abstract

Identification of faces from photographs is a common security measure, but matching unfamiliar faces produces high rates of error. Caricatures of familiar people are highly identifiable because they exaggerate distinctive features. We investigated whether exaggerating unfamiliar faces through caricaturing could also improve face-matching accuracy. In Experiment 1, facematching arrays were caricatured relative to an average by 30%, 50% and 70%. Correct rejection of the target-absent arrays was improved at all levels. Accurate matches increased at 30%, but at 70%, the transformation was too extreme, and all of the arrays were more likely to be rejected. In Experiment 2, photographic identification (ID) images were caricatured by 30% and 50% and matched to life-size photographs. Rejection of foils improved, but the ID of matching images was impaired. Modest levels of caricature may improve discrimination in unfamiliar face matching, but at stronger levels, a conservative response bias may inhibit accurate ID.

Unfamiliar face matching: Pairs out‐perform individuals and provide a route to training

“…The distinction between 'high performers' and 'low performers' in a pair led to the suggestion that this technique could be used as training for improving individual unfamiliar face matching accuracy. Options for training have been explored before, using different techniques, with limited success (Alenezi & Bindemann, 2013;McIntyre et al, 2013;Moore & Johnston, 2013;. In experiments 2 and 3a, we investigate training effects of pairs by having participants perform a final face matching block on their own.…”

“…White, Kemp, Jenkins, and Burton () showed a benefit for participants trained with trial‐by‐trial feedback, while Alenezi and Bindemann () demonstrated only that this technique halted an overall decline in performance across a series of trials. Attempts have been made to improve unfamiliar face matching in other ways, such as through increased motivation (Moore & Johnston, ), facial caricaturing (McIntyre, Hancock, Kittler, & Langton, ) and adding multiple images to photo‐ID (White, Burton, Jenkins, & Kemp, ), all with limited success.…”

Super‐recognisers in Action: Evidence from Face‐matching and Face Memory Tasks

“…While accuracy is a good indicator of the overall patterns of responses between the SR and control groups, additional analyses regarding sensitivity and response criterion permit more in‐depth understanding of the differences between them and are useful for cross‐study comparison (McIntyre, Hancock, Kittler & Langton, 2013). In line‐up paradigms with target‐present and target‐absent arrays, there are five types of response (discussed in the preceding text), which is not typical for signal detection analyses.…”

Face-selective regions show invariance to linear, but not to non-linear, changes in facial images

“…In the unchanged condition, images in each block were shown at the original size. In the size change condition, the size of the images in each block was shown at 50,75 or 100% of the original image dimensions. In the linear stretch condition, the height of the images in each block was unchanged, but the width of images was 50, 75 or 100% of the original image.…”