Feedback training for facial image comparison

David White,A Mike Burton,Richard I Kemp,Rob Jenkins

doi:10.3758/s13423-013-0475-3

David White, A Mike Burton + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-013-0475-3

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Abstract

People are typically poor at matching the identity of unfamiliar faces from photographs. This observation has broad implications for face matching in operational settings (e.g., border control). Here, we report significant improvements in face matching ability following feedback training. In Experiment 1, we show cumulative improvement in performance on a standard test of face matching ability when participants were provided with trial-by-trial feedback. More important, Experiment 2 shows that training benefits can generalize to novel, widely varying, unfamiliar face images for which no feedback is provided. The transfer effect specifically benefited participants who had performed poorly on an initial screening test. These findings are discussed in the context of existing literature on unfamiliar face matching and perceptual training. Given the reliability of the performance enhancement and its generalization to diverse image sets, we suggest that feedback training may be useful for face matching in occupational settings.

Highlights

Many important security and forensic procedures rely on people’s ability to verify the identity of unfamiliar individuals from photographs
Analysis of Simple Main Effects revealed a reliable effect of feedback for the Low Aptitude matchers, F(1,54) = 18.99, p0.05, d = 0.468, and a significant difference between High and Low Aptitude matchers in the No Feedback condition, F(1,54) = 26.10, p0.05
General Discussion Our results show that baseline measures of unfamiliar face matching performance can be improved by feedback training

Summary

Introduction

Many important security and forensic procedures rely on people’s ability to verify the identity of unfamiliar individuals from photographs. Bruce et al (1999) report 30% error-rates for a 1-in-10 identification decision, where participants must identify a target face from a simultaneouslypresented array of face images. This poor performance was observed despite the fact that all photos were taken on the same day, under standardized lighting conditions and in standardized full-face pose. Similar results have been reported across a range of different stimulus sets, viewing conditions and experimental procedures Performance is just as poor when matching a photo to a live person, rather than matching two photos (Kemp, Towell, & Pike, 1997; Megreya & Burton, 2008)

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