title: Holistic Facial Composite Creation and Subsequent Video Line-up Eyewitness Identification Paradigm.
abstract: The paradigm detailed in this manuscript describes an applied experimental method based on real police investigations during which an eyewitness or victim to a crime may create from memory a holistic facial composite of the culprit with the assistance of a police operator. The aim is that the composite is recognized by someone who believes that they know the culprit. For this paradigm, participants view a culprit actor on video and following a delay, participant-witnesses construct a holistic system facial composite. Controls do not construct a composite. From a series of arrays of computer-generated, but realistic faces, the holistic system construction method primarily requires participant-witnesses to select the facial images most closely meeting their memory of the culprit. Variation between faces in successive arrays is reduced until ideally the final image possesses a close likeness to the culprit. Participant-witness directed tools can also alter facial features, configurations between features and holistic properties (e.g., age, distinctiveness, skin tone), all within a whole face context. The procedure is designed to closely match the holistic manner by which humans' process faces. On completion, based on their memory of the culprit, ratings of composite-culprit similarity are collected from the participant-witnesses. Similar ratings are collected from culprit-acquaintance assessors, as a marker of composite recognition likelihood. Following a further delay, all participants--including the controls--attempt to identify the culprit in either a culprit-present or culprit-absent video line-up, to replicate circumstances in which the police have located the correct culprit, or an innocent suspect. Data of control and participant-witness line-up outcomes are presented, demonstrating the positive influence of holistic composite construction on identification accuracy. Correlational analyses are conducted to measure the relationship between assessor and participant-witness composite-culprit similarity ratings, delay, identification accuracy, and confidence to examine which factors influence video line-up outcomes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Social Work and Counselling, University of Greenwich; j.p.davis@greenwich.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Josh P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Davis
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Social Work and Counselling, University of Greenwich.
authors.forename: Andreea C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Maigut
authors.affiliation: Department of Criminology, University of Greenwich.
authors.forename: Darrick
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Jolliffe
authors.affiliation: School of Physical Sciences, University of Kent.
authors.forename: Stuart J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Gibson
authors.affiliation: School of Physical Sciences, University of Kent.
authors.forename: Chris J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Solomon
mesh_terms: D001296:Audiovisual Aids; D003415:Crime; D005145:Face / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D005260:Female; D044707:Forensic Sciences / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult