Abstract
The own-age bias (OAB) refers to recognition memory being more accurate for people of our own age than other age groups (e.g., Wright and Stroud, 2002). This paper investigated whether the OAB effect is present during construction of human faces (also known as facial composites, often for forensic/police use). In doing so, it adds to our understanding of factors influencing both facial memory across the life span as well as performance of facial composites. Participant-witnesses were grouped into younger (19–35 years) and older (51–80 years) adults, and constructed a single composite from memory of an own- or cross-age target face using the feature-based composite system PRO-fit. They also completed the shortened version of the glasgow face matching test (GFMT; Burton et al., 2010). A separate group of participants who were familiar with the relevant identities attempted to name the resulting composites. Correct naming of the composites revealed the presence of an OAB for older adults, who constructed more-identifiable composites of own-age than cross-age faces. For younger adults, age of target face did not influence correct naming and their composites were named at the same level as those constructed by older adults for younger targets. Also, there was no reliable correlation between face perception ability and composite quality. Overall, correct naming was fairly good across the experiment, and indicated benefit for older witnesses for older targets. Results are discussed in terms of contemporary theories of OAB, and implications of the work for forensic practice.
Highlights
Individuals can effortlessly and accurately detect the age of a face across their life span (e.g., Rhodes and Anastasi, 2012)
The current study aimed to investigate whether an own-age bias (OAB) effect occurs in facial-composite construction
Own-age bias refers to facial-recognition memory being more accurate for those of our own than cross-age groups (Wright and Stroud, 2002)
Summary
Individuals can effortlessly and accurately detect the age of a face across their life span (e.g., Rhodes and Anastasi, 2012). It is worth mentioning that the own-race bias (ORB) resembles a separate phenomenon, whereby individuals are better able to remember faces belonging to their own-race relative to another race (e.g., see Meissner and Brigham, 2001). This has led researchers when attempting to explain effects of OAB to draw upon accounts originally put forward for the ORB: The assumption is that both ownrace and OAB are examples of a more general underlying phenomenon.
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