Investigating Predictors of Superior Face Recognition Ability in Police Super‐recognisers

Abstract

Summary: There are large individual differences in the ability to recognise faces. Super-recognisers are exceptionally good at face memory tasks. In London, a small specialist pool of police officers (also labelled 'super-recognisers' by the Metropolitan Police Service) annually makes 1000's of suspect identifications from closed-circuit television footage. Some suspects are disguised, have not been encountered recently or are depicted in poor quality images. Across tests measuring familiar face recognition, unfamiliar face memory and unfamiliar face matching, the accuracy of members of this specialist police pool was approximately equal to a group of non-police super-recognisers. Both groups were more accurate than matched control members of the public. No reliable relationships were found between the face processing tests and object recognition. Within each group, however, there were large performance variations across tests, and this research has implications for the deployment of police worldwide in operations requiring officers with superior face processing ability

Face Recognition Abilities in Iraqi Medical Students: An Inferential, Cross Sectional Analysis

“…Davis and colleagues suggested that prosopagnosia could be either developmental or acquired as a consequence of specific cortical neuronal damage (3,4). Overall, exploitation of super-recognizers is invaluable, particularly in lawenforcement and intelligence agencies (5)(6)(7)(8)(9).…”

“…Specific tests have been used to examine facial recognition abilities. These tests include the modified cambridge face memory test and cambridge face perception test (3,10). The correlation between handedness and complex visual analytic skills has been studied before.…”

“…These individuals are the exact opposite of people with a medical condition, known as "prosopagnosia" or "face blindness". In this condition, an individual has deteriorated or limited abilities to recognise faces (3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9).…”

TooManyEyes: super-recogniser directed identification of target individuals on CCTV

“…At one end of the ability spectrum are Developmental Prosopagnosics (DPs) who may be adversely affected by a neurodevelopmental impairment in processing facial stimuli but display no apparent neurological damage [6,7]. The antitheses are Super-Recognisers (SRs), who compared with the typical population, score higher on tests assessing face perception, simultaneous face matching, and familiar and unfamiliar face recognition [e.g., 1,4,5,8], while performing at about the same level as controls at object recognition [3,4], which suggests that SR, like DP is primarily face-specific.…”

“…[1][2][3][4][5]. At one end of the ability spectrum are Developmental Prosopagnosics (DPs) who may be adversely affected by a neurodevelopmental impairment in processing facial stimuli but display no apparent neurological damage [6,7].…”