Understanding the multiframe caricature advantage for recognizing facial composites

Abstract

Eyewitnesses often construct a “composite” face of a person they saw commit a crime, a picture that police use to identify suspects. We described a technique (Frowd, Bruce, Ross, McIntyre, & Hancock, 2007) based on facial caricature to facilitate recognition of these images: Correct naming substantially improves when composites are seen with progressive positive caricature, where distinctive information is enhanced, and then with progressive negative caricature, the opposite. Over the course of four experiments, the underpinnings of this mechanism were explored. Positive-caricature levels were found to be largely responsible for improving naming of composites, with some benefit from negative-caricature levels. Also, different frame-presentation orders (forward, reverse, random, repeated) facilitated equivalent naming benefit relative to static composites. Overall, the data indicate that composites are usually constructed as negative caricatures.

Keywords:

• Caricature
• Face space
• Facial composite
• Memory
• Witness

Notes

¹There are two types of inaccurate response for a composite: no name offered and a mistaken name. The latter provides an indication of participants’ willingness to provide a name, or guess (response bias), and lower mistaken names, per se, indicate stimuli which trigger a more accurate response. Here, inaccurate names were somewhat frequent overall (M = 33.2%), a typical result observed when naming composites (e.g., Frowd, Bruce, Ross, et al., 2007; Frowd et al., 2010, 2012). A logistic regression was also run including incorrect responses for those composites where identity was known. Presentation type was not a reliable predictor, χ²(3) < 1. Similar analyses were conducted on incorrect responses elsewhere in the paper and indicated that mistaken names were not influenced by fixed variables. Frowd, Bruce, Ross, et al. (2007) reached the same conclusion.

²For statistical procedure, see Meng, Rosenthal, and Rubin (1992).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David Ross

David Ross has recently relocated to: Psychological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, USA