title: These two are different. Yes, they're the same: Choice blindness for facial identity.
abstract: We examined the manipulability of face identity judgements by combining a sorting task for unfamiliar faces with a standard test of choice blindness. In Experiment 1, 50 participants completed a sorting task and then justified grouping specific pairs of photos together or apart. On manipulated trials, the presented pairings were different from those the participants had actually produced. Detection rates for these identity manipulations were strikingly low (∼21%). Moreover, participants readily provided justifications for identity decisions that they had not made, typically referring to specific facial features. Experiment 2 was conducted along similar lines and confirmed that lower task difficulty and higher confidence in one's face identity judgements increase detection rates. We conclude that observers can easily be led to believe that they made identity judgements they did not make. As well as underscoring the fragility of unfamiliar face matching, our findings have implications for identity judgements in legal settings.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychological Science, Maastricht University, The Netherlands. Electronic address: melanie.sauerland@maastrichtuniversity.nl.
authors.forename: Melanie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sauerland
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychological Science, Maastricht University, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sagana
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychological Science, Maastricht University, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Kathrin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Siegmann
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychological Science, Maastricht University, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Danitsja
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Heiligers
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychological Science, Maastricht University, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Harald
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Merckelbach
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of York, UK.
authors.forename: Rob
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Jenkins
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D000066499:Facial Recognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Choice blindness; Confabulation; Eyewitness; Face recognition; Identification