Improving the Quality of Facial Composites Using a Holistic Cognitive Interview

Witnesses to and victims of serious crime are normally asked to describe the appearance of a criminal suspect, using a Cognitive Interview (CI), and to construct a facial composite, a visual representation of the face. Research suggests that focusing on the global aspects of a face, as opposed to it...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of experimental psychology. Applied 2008-09, Vol.14 (3), p.276-287
Main Authors: Frowd, Charlie D, Bruce, Vicki, Smith, Ashley J, Hancock, Peter J. B
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Attention
Attribution
Cognitive Interview
Cognitive interviews
Cognitive Processes
Crime - psychology
Criminals
Discrimination Learning
Face
Face Perception
Face recognition
Facial Features
Female
Human
Human Body
Humans
Identification
Interview, Psychological - methods
Interviews
Law Enforcement
Male
Mental Recall
Offenders
Pattern Recognition, Visual
Police
Practice (Psychology)
Recall
Recall (Learning)
Recognition (Psychology)
Retention (Psychology)
Traits
Victims of Crime
Video Technology
Witnesses
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Witnesses to and victims of serious crime are normally asked to describe the appearance of a criminal suspect, using a Cognitive Interview (CI), and to construct a facial composite, a visual representation of the face. Research suggests that focusing on the global aspects of a face, as opposed to its facial features, facilitates recognition and improves composite quality; also, that the CI enables more effective use of a composite system. The current study evaluated a novel "holistic" Cognitive Interview (H-CI). This comprised a descriptive phase, using a CI, followed by a recognition-enhancing phase, involving the attribution of seven holistic properties. Participant-witnesses watched a video of a target, then 3 to 4 hours later received either a CI or an H-CI and constructed a single composite with a standard system, PRO-fit. Composites constructed after the H-CI were correctly named more than four times as often as those after the CI, attributable to an improvement in the quality of both the internal and external parts of the face. In police work, the H-CI offers the possibility of substantially improving the identification of criminal suspects.
ISSN:1076-898X
1939-2192
DOI:10.1037/1076-898X.14.3.276