Search

Summary: Investigations of face identification have typically focussed on matching faces to photographic IDs. Few researchers have considered the task of searching for a face in a crowd. In Experiment 1, we created the Chokepoint Search Test to simulate real‐time search for a target. Performance on this test was poor (39% accuracy) and showed moderate associations with tests of face matching and memory. In addition, trial‐level confidence predicted accuracy, and for those participants who were previously familiar with one or more targets, higher familiarity was associated with increased accuracy. In Experiment 2, we found improvements in performance on the test when three recent images of the target, but not three social media images, were displayed during searches. Taken together, our results highlight the difficulties inherent in real‐time searching for faces, with important implications for those security personnel who carry out this task on a daily basis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Matching two different images of an unfamiliar face is difficult, although we rely on this process every day when proving our identity. Although previous work with laboratory photosets has shown that performance is error-prone, few studies have focussed on how accurately people carry out this matching task using photographs taken from official forms of identification. In Experiment 1, participants matched high-resolution, colour face photos with current UK driving licence photos of the same group of people in a sorting task. Averaging 19 mistaken pairings out of 30, our results showed that this task was both difficult and error-prone. In Experiment 2, highresolution photographs were paired with either driving licence or passport photographs in a typical pairwise matching paradigm. We found no difference in performance levels for the two types of ID image, with both producing unacceptable levels of accuracy (around 75%-79% correct). The current work benefits from increased ecological validity and provides a clear demonstration that these forms of official identification are ineffective and alternatives should be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]