The impact of external facial features on the construction of facial composites

Brown, Charity; Portch, Emma; Skelton, Faye Collette; Fodarella, Cristina; Kuivaniemi-Smith, Heidi; Herold, Kate; Hancock, Peter; Frowd, Charlie D.

doi:10.1080/00140139.2018.1556816

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 57 publications

(61 reference statements)

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“…What is possible here is that media outlets cropped the image for space, but another possibility is for stylistic reasons (to show the central part of the face); however, provisional research from our laboratory indicates that revealing less than a complete face may not be best for identification. Much better, as our research has shown recently [19], would be to present the face with alternative representations including hat and sunglasses. Clearly, additional research is needed to clarify what should be best practice, and to identify the reason why published images have not faithfully represented the original composite, as constructed by a witness.…”

Section: (B) Public Appeals Involving Non-evofit Compositesmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…These include improvements to the initial interview (to give an 'enhanced' H-CI), EvoFIT system (mechanism for setting facial width, selection by focusing on the eye region, new face and accessory databases) and postproduction (incl. stretched composite and hats-and-sunglasses format) [ [19]. Enhancements were discussed with practitioners, to elicit feedback, and included in (i) training courses for new practitioners and (ii) annual workshops for existing practitioners.…”

Section: (B) Uptake Of Procedural Enhancementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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EvoFIT Facial Composite Images: A Detailed Assessment of Impact on Forensic Practitioners, Police Investigators, Victims, Witnesses, Offenders and the Media

Frowd

Portch

Killeen

et al. 2019

2019 Eighth International Conference on Emerging Security Technologies (EST)

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This paper assesses use of EvoFIT facial composites by police practitioners in the UK and overseas. Results reveal that this composite system is used extensively: a total of 2,440 times since September 2013. With a suspect identification rate of 60% and a conviction rate of 17%, the impact of this forensic technique is appreciable for helping the police to identify and convict offenders. It was also found that empirically-driven enhancement techniques were used frequently by police practitioners-including use of detailed context reinstatement and holistic techniques during interview, asking the witness to focus on the eye-region during construction, or presenting a stretched image for identification. Research evaluating EvoFIT composites published by police in the media also reveals that composites were deployed almost exclusively for serious offences, and most often for sexual crimes. In addition, the vast majority were of male offenders, in their early 30's; victims were female (aged mid 20's to mid 30's). A similar outcome was observed for composites published from another recognition system, EFIT-V / 6. Although this overall exercise revealed that EvoFIT composites were sometimes presented to the public in an optimal, stretched fashion, it was also apparent that a worrying number of composites were presented in a way that did not faithfully represent the constructed image, specifically, with the external features cropped.

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Section: (B) Public Appeals Involving Non-evofit Compositesmentioning

confidence: 94%

Section: (B) Uptake Of Procedural Enhancementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

EvoFIT Facial Composite Images: A Detailed Assessment of Impact on Forensic Practitioners, Police Investigators, Victims, Witnesses, Offenders and the Media

Frowd

Portch

Killeen

et al. 2019

2019 Eighth International Conference on Emerging Security Technologies (EST)

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“…Unfortunately, composites are generally poorly recognised by people who are familiar with the person being portrayed (e.g., Davies & Valentine, ; Frowd, Carson, Ness, McQuiston‐Surrett, et al, ; Frowd, Carson, Ness, Richardson, et al, ; Frowd et al, ; Valentine & Davis, ; Zahradnikova, Duchovicova, & Schreiber, ). Most research on composite construction has consequently focused on identifying the reasons why these systems produce such poor likenesses, in order to improve their effectiveness as an aid for the police (e.g., Brown et al, ; Frowd et al, ; Ness, Hancock, Bowie, Bruce, & Pike, ). Early composite systems, such as Photofit and Identikit, were based on a misconceived, “feature‐based,” model of human face processing (Ellis, Davies, & Shepherd, , ; Frowd et al, ; Laughery & Fowler, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of racial bias on composite construction

Bhardwaj

Hole

2020

Applied Cognitive Psychology

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Summary We investigated how prior bias about a face's racial characteristics can affect its encoding and resultant facial composite construction. In total, 61 participants (24 Europeans, 18 Indians living in India and 19 Indians living in Europe) saw a racially ambiguous unfamiliar face and were led to believe it was either European or Indian. They created a composite of this face, using EFIT6. Two groups of independent raters (one Indian, the other European) then assessed the apparent race of each composite. A different two groups (one Indian, one European) assessed each composite's degree of resemblance to the target face, to determine whether this was influenced by the constructors' initial categorisation of the target face as “own‐race” or “other‐race.” Composites appeared significantly more “Asian” or “European” according to the bias induced in their creators, but there was no evidence of any own‐race bias in the resemblance ratings for the composites.

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