The consistency of superior face recognition skills in police officers

Bate, Sarah; Frowd, Charlie; Bennetts, Rachel; Hasshim, Nabil; Portch, Emma; Murray, Ebony; Dudfield, Gavin

Abstract

In recent years, there has been increasing interest in people with superior face recognition skills. Yet identification of these individuals has mostly relied on criterion performance on a single attempt at a single measure of face memory. The current investigation aimed to examine the consistency of superior face recognition skills in 30 police officers, both across tests that tap into the same process and between tests that tap into different components of face processing. Overall indices of performance across related measures were found to identify different superior performers to isolated test scores. Further, different top performers emerged for target-present versus target-absent indices, suggesting that signal detection measures are the most useful indicators of performance. Finally, a dissociation was observed between superior memory and matching performance. Super-recognizer screening programmes hould therefore include overall indices summarizing multiple attempts at related tests, allowing for individuals to rank highly on different (and sometimes very specific) tasks.

Citation

Bate, S., Frowd, C., Bennetts, R., Hasshim, N., Portch, E., Murray, E., & Dudfield, G. (2019). The consistency of superior face recognition skills in police officers. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 33(5), 828--842. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3525

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 22, 2019
• Deposit Date: Sep 16, 2023
• Journal: Applied Cognitive Psychology
• Print ISSN: 0888-4080
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 33
• Issue: 5
• Pages: 828--842
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3525