Holistic Facial Composite Creation and Subsequent Video Line-up Eyewitness Identification Paradigm

The overall goal of this experiment is to replicate police investigations in which an eyewitness may create a holistic facial composite of the offender from memory, and then subsequently be asked to view a video lineup containing the police suspect. This method can answer key questions in the field of forensic psychology, such as how facial composite production can be optimized and the effect of that on subsequent eyewitness identification. The main advantage of this method is, is flexibility.

Key variables can be measured such as delay between procedures, age or ethnicity of the participants, things that might affect a real police investigation. Demonstrating the procedure will be Andrea Mag, a research assistant in my laboratory, who has also attended police operator training and our participant witness who is completely naive to the procedure. To begin, have the participant view a video clip showing a randomly selected culprit committing a minor crime.

The video should depict good quality, full body views and closeups of the front and both sides of the face. Following the video, have the participant witness provide a verbal description of the culprits, approximate age, gender, ethnicity, and clothing. Then have the participant witness provide a verbal rating depicting their confidence in being able to recognize the culprit.

Next, use the elements of the cognitive interview to ascertain as many additional details as possible about the culprit. Fill in any gaps left by the participant witnesses free recall account using the series of questions listed in table one of the accompanying text protocol. Once finished, turn on the interface of the Holistic Facial Composite System software.

Enter the gender, the ethnicity, and the age range of the culprit into the appropriate boxes as they were described by the participant. During the interview review, have the operator guide the participant witness through the construction of the holistic facial composite. This follows a procedure in which the participant witness selects the best and rejects the worst matching images to their memory of the culprit from a three by three array of nine randomly displayed computer generated images.

If the participant witness is not satisfied with any of the nine images, have the operator generate additional arrays. Note that the best example selected from one array always appears in the subsequent array, and the similarity between faces within an array increases automatically at each step of the process. As such, ask the participant witness to first select the best matching face shape.

Continue with the same selection process until the participant witness selects the closest matching nose, mouth, eye, and eyebrow shape from the subsequent arrays. Next, create the three by three array so that all of the faces now possess the same features as they were entered by the participant witness. Have them select an appropriate hairstyle and hair color from the large database using the interface's hair tool with the hair and facial features locked in.

Have the participant witness select an appropriate shoulder appearance using the clothing and colors available in the shoulders tool. Then use the toolbar to move scale and rotate the neck and shoulders until the participant witness is comfortable with the choice. Next, have them select additional clothing with or without logos.

This can also include items such as scarves, hoodies, spectacles, or sunglasses. Also, have the participant witness direct any changes to the culprits facial hair. Use the additional tools available on the beard interface to enter these selections.

Once finished, open the interfaces dynamic overlay tool and demonstrate its ability to make subtle changes to specific areas of the skin or global changes to the face as a whole. Make any changes as directed by the participant.Witness. Next, magnify the face in order for the participant witness to inspect it more closely.

Use the local tool to systematically change the shape of the individual facial features as well as the overall shape of the face and head only if instructed to do so by the participant witness. Then demonstrate the holistic attributes tool, which allows the face to be made to appear older or younger, more or less distinctive and pale or darker skinned. Make changes to the image as directed by the participant witness.

Display the final composite on the screen and have the participant witness approve the image. Save the approved file by clicking on the save image button. In the interfaces finished tool, have a police officer create a video lineup consisting of nine foils that have the same general appearance in life as the culprit.

Insert the culprit into the lineup, replacing one of the foils during the culprit present lineup and leave them out for the culprit absent lineup up. Have the participant read the instructions on the queued description form found as table two in the accompanying text protocol. Then assist them in completing the multiple choice or queued questions on the form.

Once the form has been completely filled out, show the participant witness the compiled video lineup consisting of a sequential display of nine 15 second clips in which the suspect and foils are randomly ordered. Show this video twice on completion. Ask the participant whether they would like to view any part of the lineup again or if they would like to review the entire lineup.

Then have the participant witness respond in writing to a lineup questionnaire asking whether the culprit was present or not in the lineup. If the response is yes, have them provide the lineup member's number. If the participant selects a lineup member, play the video clip of that member only to the participant witness in order to ensure they are satisfied with their response.

Finally, have the participant witness provide a confidence estimate in their lineup decision regardless of whether they made a selection or rejected the lineup altogether From the video lineup. The participant witness selected number six, and that was the correct answer. In a real police investigation, if the witness selects a suspect, that suspect might be further investigated and eventually be charged and sentenced with a crime.

If the witness selected a foil or they're known to be innocent and there would be no further circumstances. Two groups of participants both witnessed a culprit at the beginning of the study. The witness group created a composite of the culprit after seeing the initial video where the control group did not.

After the same amount of time, both groups were shown the video lineups and asked to pick out the culprit. The total number of identifications was statistically similar between both groups of participants. 57 out of 78 controls or roughly 73%identified someone from the lineup, and 24 out of 30 or 80%of the witnesses picked someone out of the lineup.

Where these two groups differ is that the witness group, the participants that created the composites sketch correctly identified the culprit 70%of the time, whereas the control group correctly identified the culprit only about 45%of the time. In the case where the participants viewed a lineup where the culprit was absent, about 60%identified an innocent foil While attempting this procedure. It's important to remember that in order to best replicate a real police investigation, participant witness should be naive to the procedure and the operator should not watch the culprit videos in advance Following the procedure.

Further analytical methods can be conducted such as measuring the effect of suspect likeness on subsequent eyewitness identification accuracy After its development. This technique paved the way for researchers in the field of facial composite to explore the influence of delay between procedures and to apply the method with children as young as six years old and adults over the age of 90. After watching this video, you should have a good understanding of how the police might create a facial composite in a real investigation, and also what a witness should expect when viewing a video lineup, which may or may not contain the real culprit.