Attention to internal face features in unfamiliar face matching

Accurate matching of unfamiliar faces is vital in security and forensic applications, yet previous research has suggested that humans often perform poorly when matching unfamiliar faces. Hairstyle and facial hair can strongly influence unfamiliar face matching but are potentially unreliable cues. This study investigated whether increased attention to the more stable internal face features of eyes, nose, and mouth was associated with more accurate face‐matching performance. Forty‐three first‐year psychology students decided whether two simultaneously presented faces were of the same person or not. The faces were displayed for either 2 or 6 seconds, and had either similar or dissimilar hairstyles. The level of attention to internal features was measured by the proportion of fixation time spent on the internal face features and the sensitivity of discrimination to changes in external feature similarity. Increased attention to internal features was associated with increased discrimination in the 2‐second display‐time condition, but no significant relationship was found in the 6‐second condition. Individual differences in eye‐movements were highly stable across the experimental conditions

Cognitive psychology · Face (sociological concept) · Face perception · Fixation (population genetics) · Matching (statistics) · Perception · Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior · Face recognition and analysis · Face Recognition and Perception · Mathematics · Neuroscience · Psychology · Social Psychology

• Eye Movements and Vision

  Open Access•Alfred L Yarbus•Eye Movements and Vision•1967

  Añadir item

• Human gaze control during real-world scene perception

  Open Access•J Henderson, J Michael Henderson•Trends in Cognitive Sciences•2003

  Añadir item

• Identifying fixations and saccades in eye-tracking protocols

  Open Access•Dario D Salvucci, Joseph H Goldberg•Proceedings of the symposium on…•2000

  Añadir item

• The Measurement of Observer Agreement for Categorical Data

  J R Landis, Gary G Koch•Biometrics•1977

  Añadir item

• Orienting of Attention

  Open Access•Michael I Posner•Quarterly Journal of Experimental…•1980

  Añadir item

• Understanding face recognition

  Open Access•Vicki Bruce, Andy Young•British Journal of Psychology•1986

  Añadir item

• Face processing and familiarity

  Open Access•Paula C Stacey, Stephanie Walker et al.•British Journal of Psychology•2005

  Añadir item

• Eye movements in reading and information processing

  Keith Rayner•Psychological Bulletin•1998

  Añadir item