Frowd, C.D., Portch, E., Estudillo, A.J. et al. (4 more authors) (2025) The Value of Whole-Face Procedures for the Construction and Naming of Identifiable Likenesses for Recall-Based Methods of Facial-Composite Construction. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 39 (4). ISSN: 0888-4080
Abstract
Traditional methods of facial-composite construction rely on an eyewitness recalling features of an offender's face. We assess the value of the addition of a trait–recall mnemonic to a cognitive-type interview, and perceptually stretching presented composites, to aid image recognition. Participant-constructors intentionally or incidentally encoded a target face, were interviewed about its facial features 3–4 h or 2 days later, made a series of trait attributions (or not) about the face and constructed a feature-based composite. Regardless of encoding manipulation, faces constructed after 3–4 h were twice as likely to be correctly named (cf. after 2 days) both when the trait–recall mnemonic was applied and composites were viewed stretched. Thus, the research indicates that benefit should be afforded when trait–recall mnemonics are employed for feature composites constructed on the same day as the crime and when composites are presented to potential recognisers with instruction to view the face as a perceptual stretch.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2025 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | facial composite; perceptual stretch; retention interval; trait attribution |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Medicine and Health (Leeds) > School of Psychology (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) RES-000-22-4150 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 06 Feb 2025 10:11 |
Last Modified: | 28 Jul 2025 14:12 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Identification Number: | 10.1002/acp.70015 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:222949 |