A task‐ and role‐based perspective on super‐recognizers: Commentary on ‘Super‐recognizers: From the lab to the world and back again’

Abstract

This article provides a commentary on recent work by Ramon et al. (2019, British Journal of Psychology) on super-recognizers. The commentary advocates a task-and role-based approach to SR research and greater collaboration between researchers and the applied community.

Towards a ‘manifesto’ for super‐recognizer research

“…Twelve respected researchers took the time to respond thoughtfully to our article, and to extend the ideas we put forward. Together, these responses reflect the vast interest in this topic over recent years and the positive steps that are already underway to address the gap between the laboratory and the world (e.g., in test development; Robertson & Bindemann, 2019;Bate, Portch, Mestry, & Bennetts, 2019;Devue, 2019), including the emergence of collaborative groups comprising academics and experienced face identification practitioners (Moreton, Pike, & Havard, 2019).…”

“…Together, these responses reflect the vast interest in this topic over recent years and the positive steps that are already underway to address the gap between the laboratory and the world (e.g., in test development; Robertson & Bindemann, 2019;Bate, Portch, Mestry, & Bennetts, 2019;Devue, 2019), including the emergence of collaborative groups comprising academics and experienced face identification practitioners (Moreton, Pike, & Havard, 2019). Together, these responses reflect the vast interest in this topic over recent years and the positive steps that are already underway to address the gap between the laboratory and the world (e.g., in test development; Robertson & Bindemann, 2019;Bate, Portch, Mestry, & Bennetts, 2019;Devue, 2019), including the emergence of collaborative groups comprising academics and experienced face identification practitioners (Moreton, Pike, & Havard, 2019).…”

“…Therefore, the more realistic and pragmatic approach is to conceptualize a framework for assessing discrete and distinguishable cognitive (sub)processes (Bate et al, 2019;Devue, 2019;Ramon et al, 2019), as well as clearly defined tasks of interest (Devue, 2019;Moreton et al, 2019;Ramon et al, 2019). The main reason is that any such potential agreement is insufficiently flexible to accommodate the continuously changing demands of real-world challenges that practitioners are confronted with.…”

“…This endeavour can be accomplished through close collaboration between scientists and practitioners (see also Moreton et al, 2019). Working groups and consortiums with academics and practitioners and other end-users foster collaborations which are at the core of progress of this field.…”

“…The main reason is that any such potential agreement is insufficiently flexible to accommodate the continuously changing demands of real-world challenges that practitioners are confronted with. Therefore, the more realistic and pragmatic approach is to conceptualize a framework for assessing discrete and distinguishable cognitive (sub)processes (Bate et al, 2019;Devue, 2019;Ramon et al, 2019), as well as clearly defined tasks of interest (Devue, 2019;Moreton et al, 2019;Ramon et al, 2019). Ideally, this framework would be adopted by researchers and practitioners from a range of disciplines interested in identifying individuals with superior processing abilitiesbe it for deployment or fundamental research purposes.…”