The role of familiarization in dynamic person recognition

Abstract

ABSTRACTPerson recognition in real life is typically performed on dynamic whole people. Recent studies have indicated that the body and motion may contribute to person recognition beyond the face. In the current study, we examined the role of dynamic identity signatures—the idiosyncratic dynamic pattern of an individual—in unfamiliar and familiarized person recognition. To familiarize participants with the studied identities, we used an individuation training procedure and tested person recognition before and after training. In Experiment 1, participants studied people in motion and recognized them from dynamic or multi-static images (i.e., multiple still images taken from the video). We found that person recognition was better when people were recognized from dynamic than multi-static stimuli but only for familiarized people. These findings suggest that dynamic identity signatures may be used for familiar person recognition. In Experiment 2, we ruled out two alternative explanations by presenting multi-static images in study and testing recognition from dynamic or multi-static stimuli: lower recognition rates from dynamic stimuli following exposure to multi-static than dynamic stimuli indicated no evidence for a general advantage to recognition from video; lower recognition rates from multi-static stimuli following exposure to multi-static stimuli indicated no evidence for an advantage due to the congruence between the study and test media. We conclude that dynamic identity signatures may contribute to person recognition, but only of familiar people who were previously seen in motion.