Construction of Facial Composites from Eyewitness Memory.

Law enforcement agencies often rely on practical technologies to help witnesses and victims of crimes construct likenesses of faces from memory. These 'face composites' are typically circulated to law enforcement officers and made accessible to the public in the hope that someone familiar with the depicted person will recognise their likeness and thus provide the police with a suspect. We will review methods for constructing such likenesses from memory dating back to the portrait parlé of Alphonse Bertillon (Signaletic instructions including the theory and practice of anthropometrical identification. Werner Company, 1896) and the composite images of Francis Galton (Nature 18:97-100, 1878). We will also review more modern methods, ranging from the overlay techniques of Identi-Kit (McDonald, c 1959) and Photo-Fit (Penry J. The Police Journal 43:307, 1970) to feature-based computerised composite systems such as Identi-Kit 2000, FACES, and ProMat. Most early systems were based on the common-sense notion that sectioning a face is invertible: just as a face can be sectioned into components, so it can be recreated by arrangements of sections. This assumption appears to be unwarranted. The underlying problem with earlier face systems may have been the absence of a representational or computational theory. This led in the late 1990s to the development of the so-called third-generation holistic composite systems, which are based on underlying statistical and mathematical models of face images (e.g. ID [Tredoux et al. South African Computer Journal 2006:90-97, 2006], EvoFIT [Frowd CD, Hancock PJB, & Carson D. ACM Transactions on Applied Psychology (TAP) 1:1-21, 2004a], E-FIT [Gibson et al., International Conference on Visualisation, 146-151, 2003]). A special focus of the chapter will be on these newer technologies and other recent technological innovations. Our approach will be to review (i) the methods of operation, (ii) the techniques identified by psychologists and other researchers for improving the quality of information obtained from memory, and (iii) the empirical data on the effectiveness of these systems at representing faces from memory. We will consider related issues, too, including the question of whether face composites damage witness memory, and the ethics of face composition.

To watch or not to watch: When reviewing body-worn camera footage improves police reports.

OBJECTIVE: We assessed how police officers' review of body-worn camera (BWC) footage, either before or after writing an initial report, affects subsequent police reports. HYPOTHESES: We had competing hypotheses regarding the effect of BWC footage review before writing a police report on the total amount of information reported (Hypothesis 1) but expected it to increase "on-camera" details while reducing "off-camera" details (Hypothesis 2) and increase the accuracy of reports (Hypothesis 3). We predicted that footage review after writing an initial report would result in more complete and more accurate revised reports (Hypothesis 4). METHOD: We conducted a field experiment with 102 Dutch police officers taking part in a training exercise in which they responded, in pairs, to an emergency call about physical abuse. One of the pair members wore a BWC. After interacting with and arresting the suspect, the officers went into separate rooms to write individual police reports. One pair member first watched the BWC footage and then wrote the report (watch first condition); the other pair member first wrote the report, then watched the footage and could revise the original report (write first condition). RESULTS: Surprisingly, reports in the watch first condition did not differ significantly in amount, observability on footage, or accuracy from original or revised reports in the write first condition. However, police officers in the write first condition significantly improved both the amount and accuracy of their reports after footage review, though effect sizes were small (amount: d = .13, 95% CI [.08, .18]; accuracy: d = .20, [.05, .36]). CONCLUSIONS: We recommend that police officers watch BWC footage only after they have written down their memories of the incident. If they revise their report after watching the footage, they should clearly identify the revisions made alongside the source of those revisions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Remembering with a friend or a stranger: comparing acquainted and unacquainted pairs in collaborative eyewitness interviews.

Previous findings show that collaborative interviews with pairs of eyewitnesses can result in more accurate testimony than individual interviews, and that partners remember more together if they acknowledge, repeat, rephrase and elaborate upon each other's contributions. In the present study, we investigated whether these findings differ for pairs of acquainted and unacquainted partners, respectively. Participants viewed a violent movie in the cinema and took part in three eyewitness interviews approximately five days later. The first and the last interview were always individual. The second interview was individual in the nominal condition (N = 22 pairs), collaborative with a known partner in the acquainted condition (N = 21 pairs), and collaborative with a stranger in the unacquainted condition (N = 20 pairs). We replicated benefits of collaborative eyewitness interviews, in terms of error pruning as well as delayed cross-cuing. However, we found no significant differences between acquainted and unacquainted pairs, neither in recall performance nor in retrieval strategies during the collaborative interview. Regardless of acquaintance, pairs who elaborated upon each other's contributions during the collaborative interview, remembered more together. The findings are evaluated within the theoretical framework of transactive memory. Practical implications for investigative interviewers are discussed.

Writing Alone or Together: Police Officers' Collaborative Reports of an Incident.

After witnessing an incident, police officers may write their report collaboratively. We examined how collaboration influences the amount and accuracy of information in police reports. Eighty-six police officers participated, in pairs, in a live training scenario. Officers wrote a report about the incident, either with their partner or individually. Reports by two officers working together (collaborative performance) contained less information than reports by two officers working individually (nominal performance), with no difference in accuracy. After the first report, officers who had worked individually wrote a collaborative report. Police officers who recorded their own memories prior to collaboration included less incorrect information in the collaborative report than police officers who wrote a collaborative report immediately after the incident. Finally, content-focused retrieval strategies (acknowledge, repeat, rephrase, elaborate) during the officers' discussion positively predicted the amount of information in collaborative reports. Practical recommendations for the police and suggestions for further research are provided.

Acknowledge, repeat, rephrase, elaborate: Witnesses can help each other remember more.

Crimes are often observed by multiple witnesses. Research shows that witnesses can contaminate each other's memory, but potential benefits of co-witness discussion have not yet been investigated. We examined whether witnesses can help each other remember, or prune each other's errors. In a research design with high ecological validity, attendees of a theatre play were interviewed approximately one week later about a violent scene in the play. The couples that signed up for our study had known each other for 31 years on average. Participants were first interviewed individually and then took part in a collaborative interview. We also included a control condition in which participants took part in two individual interviews. Collaboration did not help witnesses to remember more about the scene, but collaborative pairs made significantly fewer errors than nominal pairs. Further, quantitative and qualitative analyses of retrieval strategies during the discussion revealed that couples who actively acknowledged, repeated, rephrased, and elaborated upon each other's statements remembered significantly more information overall. Taken together, our findings suggest that, under certain circumstances, discussion between witnesses is not such a bad idea after all.

A field evaluation of the Eye-Closure Interview with witnesses of serious crimes.

Laboratory research shows that eye-closure during memory retrieval improves both the amount and the factual accuracy of memory reports about witnessed events. Based on these findings, we developed the Eye-Closure Interview, and examined its feasibility (in terms of compliance with the instructions) and effectiveness (in terms of the quantity and quality of reported information) in eyewitness interviews conducted by the South African Police Service. Police interviewers from the Facial Identification Unit were randomly assigned to receive Eye-Closure Interview training or no training. We analyzed 95 interviews with witnesses of serious crimes (including robbery, rape, and murder), some of whom were instructed to close their eyes during salient parts of the interview. Witnesses in the control condition rarely spontaneously closed their eyes, but witnesses in the Eye-Closure Interview condition kept their eyes closed during 97% of their descriptions, suggesting that the Eye-Closure Interview would be easy to implement in a field setting. Although witnesses who closed their eyes did not remember more information overall, the information they provided was considered to be of significantly greater forensic relevance (as reflected in 2 independent blind assessments, 1 by a senior police expert and 1 by a senior researcher). Thus, based on the findings from this field study and from previous laboratory research, we conclude that implementation of the Eye-Closure Interview in witness interviews would help police interviewers to elicit more valuable information from witnesses, which could be relevant to the police investigation and/or in court. (PsycINFO Database Record

Eye closure helps memory by reducing cognitive load and enhancing visualisation.

Closing the eyes helps memory. We investigated the mechanisms underlying the eyeclosure effect by exposing 80 eyewitnesses to different types of distraction during the witness interview: blank screen (control), eyes closed, visual distraction, and auditory distraction. We examined the cognitive load hypothesis by comparing any type of distraction (visual or auditory) with minimal distraction (blank screen or eyes closed). We found recall to be significantly better when distraction was minimal, providing evidence that eyeclosure reduces cognitive load. We examined the modality-specific interference hypothesis by comparing the effects of visual and auditory distraction on recall of visual and auditory information. Visual and auditory distraction selectively impaired memory for information presented in the same modality, supporting the role of visualisation in the eyeclosure effect. Analysis of recall in terms of grain size revealed that recall of basic information about the event was robust, whereas recall of specific details was prone to both general and modality-specific disruptions.

Advances in Facial Composite Technology, Utilizing Holistic Construction, Do Not Lead to an Increase in Eyewitness Misidentifications Compared to Older Feature-Based Systems.

An eyewitness can contribute to a police investigation both by creating a composite image of the face of the perpetrator and by attempting to identify them during an identification procedure. This raises the potential issue that creating a composite of a perpetrator might then interfere with the subsequent identification of that perpetrator. Previous research exploring this issue has tended to use older feature-based composite systems, but the introduction of new holistic composite systems is an important development as they were designed to be a better match for human cognition and are likely to interact with memory in a different way. This issue was explored in the current experiment. Participants were randomly assigned to a feature-based composite construction condition (using E-FIT), a holistic-based composite construction condition (using EFIT-V) or a control condition. An ecologically valid delay between seeing a staged crime, creating the composite, and completing the identification task was employed to better match conditions in real investigations. The results showed that neither type of composite construction had an effect on participants' accuracy on a subsequent identification task. This suggests that facial composite systems, including holistic systems, may not negatively impact subsequent eyewitness identification evidence.

Recounting a Common Experience: On the Effectiveness of Instructing Eyewitness Pairs.

Pairs of eyewitnesses with a content-focused interaction style remember significantly more about witnessed incidents. We examined whether content-focused retrieval strategies can be taught. Seventy-five pairs of witnesses were interviewed thrice about an event. The first and third interview were conducted individually for all witnesses. The second interview was individual, collaborative without instruction, or collaborative with instruction. Pairs in the latter condition were instructed to actively listen to and elaborate upon each other's contributions. The strategy instruction had no effect on retrieval strategies used, nor on the amount or accuracy of reported information. However, pairs who spontaneously adopted a content-focused interaction style during the collaborative interview remembered significantly more. Thus, our findings show that effective retrieval strategies cannot be taught, at least not with the current instructions. During the second interview, we observed collaborative inhibition and error pruning. When considering the total amount of information reported across the first two interviews, however, collaboration had no inhibitory effect on correct recall, yet the error pruning benefits remained. These findings suggest that investigative interviewers should interview witnesses separately first, and then interview pairs of witnesses collaboratively.

Cross-cultural differences in object recognition: Comparing asylum seekers from Sub-Saharan Africa and a matched Western European control group.

Nowadays, more and more people report about their memories in cross-cultural contexts. In international criminal settings and asylum procedures, object recognition tests can provide valuable information, for example, about weapons used during a crime or landmarks from the claimed region of origin. This study was the first to compare object recognition performance by asylum seekers from Sub-Saharan Africa to a matched Western European control group. African participants performed worse than European participants on perceptual tests involving transformations from two- to three-dimensional representations, but both groups performed equally well on an object recognition test that involved transformation from three- to two-dimensional representations. However, African participants were significantly more likely to respond "yes" on the recognition test (i.e., an acquiescence response style) than European participants. Our findings elucidate cultural differences in responding on an object recognition test. Judges, juries, and immigration officials would be wise to take these differences into account when evaluating recognition performance in cross-cultural contexts.

Effects of cannabis on eyewitness memory: A field study.

Eyewitnesses to crimes are regularly under the influence of drugs, such as cannabis. Yet there is very little research on how the use of cannabis affects eyewitness memory. In the present study, we assessed the effects of cannabis on eyewitness recall and lineup identification performance in a field setting. One hundred twenty visitors of coffee shops in Amsterdam viewed a videotaped criminal event, were interviewed about the event, and viewed a target-present or target-absent lineup. Witnesses under the influence of cannabis remembered significantly fewer correct details about the witnessed event than did sober witnesses, with no difference in incorrect recall. Cannabis use was not significantly associated with lineup identification performance, but intoxicated witnesses were significantly better at judging whether their lineup identification was accurate. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

Eye-closure increases children's memory accuracy for visual material.

Research shows that closing the eyes during retrieval can help both adults and children to remember more about witnessed events. In this study, we investigated whether the eye-closure effect in children is explained by general cognitive load, modality-specific interference, or a combination. 120 children (60 female) aged between 8 and 11 years viewed a 5-min clip depicting a theft and were questioned about the event. During the cued-recall interview, children either viewed a blank screen (blank-screen condition), kept their eyes closed (eye-closure condition), were exposed to visual stimuli (visual-distraction condition), or were exposed to auditory stimuli (auditory-distraction condition). Children in the blank-screen and eye-closure conditions provided significantly more correct and fewer incorrect responses about visual details than children in the visual- and auditory-distraction conditions. No advantage was found for auditory details. These results support neither a pure cognitive-load explanation (in which the effect is expected to be observed for recall of both visual and auditory details), nor a pure modality-specific account (in which recall of visual details should only be disrupted by visual distractions). Practical implications of the findings are discussed.