title: Face matching in a long task: enforced rest and desk-switching cannot maintain identification accuracy.
abstract: In face matching, observers have to decide whether two photographs depict the same person or different people. This task is not only remarkably difficult but accuracy declines further during prolonged testing. The current study investigated whether this decline in long tasks can be eliminated with regular rest-breaks (Experiment 1) or room-switching (Experiment 2). Both experiments replicated the accuracy decline for long face-matching tasks and showed that this could not be eliminated with rest or room-switching. These findings suggest that person identification in applied settings, such as passport control, might be particularly error-prone due to the long and repetitive nature of the task. The experiments also show that it is difficult to counteract these problems.
authors: School of Psychology, University of Kent , UK ; Department of Education and Psychology, Northern Borders University , KSA.
authors: Hamood M
authors: HM
authors: Alenezi
authors: School of Psychology, University of Kent , UK.
authors: Markus
authors: M
authors: Bindemann
authors: School of Psychology, University of Kent , UK.
authors: Matthew C
authors: MC
authors: Fysh
authors: School of Psychology, University of Kent , UK.
authors: Robert A
authors: RA
authors: Johnston
keywords: Face matching; Face perception; Passport control; Unfamiliar faces