Face and voice identity matching accuracy is not improved by multimodal identity information.

Identity verification from both faces and voices can be error-prone. Previous research has shown that faces and voices signal concordant information and cross-modal unfamiliar face-to-voice matching is possible, albeit often with low accuracy. In the current study, we ask whether performance on a face or voice identity matching task can be improved by using multimodal stimuli which add a second modality (voice or face).

The psychometrics of rating facial attractiveness using different response scales.

Perceiving facial attractiveness is an important behaviour across psychological science due to these judgments having real-world consequences. However, there is little consensus on the measurement of this behaviour, and practices differ widely. Research typically asks participants to provide ratings of attractiveness across a multitude of different response scales, with little consideration of the psychometric properties of these scales.

Multiple images captured from a single encounter do not promote face learning.

Viewing multiple images of a newly encountered face improves recognition of that identity in new instances. Studies examining face learning have presented high-variability (HV) images that incorporate changes that occur from moment-to-moment (e.g.

Face masks and fake masks: the effect of real and superimposed masks on face matching with super-recognisers, typical observers, and algorithms.

Mask wearing has been required in various settings since the outbreak of COVID-19, and research has shown that identity judgements are difficult for faces wearing masks. To date, however, the majority of experiments on face identification with masked faces tested humans and computer algorithms using images with superimposed masks rather than images of people wearing real face coverings. In three experiments we test humans (control participants and super-recognisers) and algorithms with images showing different types of face coverings.

Not the norm: Face likeness is not the same as similarity to familiar face prototypes.

Face images depicting the same individual can differ substantially from one another. Ecological variation in pose, expression, lighting, and other sources of appearance variability complicates the recognition and matching of unfamiliar faces, but acquired familiarity leads to the ability to cope with these challenges. Among the many ways that face of the same individual can vary, some images are judged to be better of familiar individuals than others.

The pairs training effect in unfamiliar face matching.

A wealth of studies have shown that humans are remarkably poor at determining whether two face images show the same person or not (face matching). Given the prevalence of photo-ID, and the fact that people employed to check photo-ID are typically unfamiliar with the person pictured, there is a need to improve unfamiliar face matching accuracy. One method of improvement is to have participants complete the task in a pair, which results in subsequent improvements in the low performer ("the pairs training effect").

Familiarity is familiarity is familiarity: Event-related brain potentials reveal qualitatively similar representations of personally familiar and famous faces.

Humans excel in familiar face recognition, but often find it hard to make identity judgements of unfamiliar faces. Understanding of the factors underlying the substantial benefits of familiarity is at present limited, but the effect is sometimes qualified by the way in which a face is known-for example, personal acquaintance sometimes gives rise to stronger familiarity effects than exposure through the media. Given the different quality of personal versus media knowledge, for example in one's emotional response or level of interaction, some have suggested qualitative differences between representations of people known personally or from media exposure.

Public attitudes towards the use of automatic facial recognition technology in criminal justice systems around the world.

Automatic facial recognition technology (AFR) is increasingly used in criminal justice systems around the world, yet to date there has not been an international survey of public attitudes toward its use. In Study 1, we ran focus groups in the UK, Australia and China (countries at different stages of adopting AFR) and in Study 2 we collected data from over 3,000 participants in the UK, Australia and the USA using a questionnaire investigating attitudes towards AFR use in criminal justice systems. Our results showed that although overall participants were aligned in their attitudes and reasoning behind them, there were some key differences across countries.

The effect of face masks and sunglasses on identity and expression recognition with super-recognizers and typical observers.

Face masks present a new challenge to face identification (here matching) and emotion recognition in Western cultures. Here, we present the results of three experiments that test the effect of masks, and also the effect of sunglasses (an occlusion that individuals tend to have more experienced with) on (i) familiar face matching, (ii) unfamiliar face matching and (iii) emotion categorization. Occlusion reduced accuracy in all three tasks, with most errors in the mask condition; however, there was little difference in performance for faces in masks compared with faces in sunglasses.

Multiple-image arrays in face matching tasks with and without memory.

Previous research has shown that exposure to within-person variability facilitates face learning. A different body of work has examined potential benefits of providing multiple images in face matching tasks. Viewers are asked to judge whether a target face matches a single face image (as when checking photo-ID) or multiple face images of the same person.

To which world regions does the valence-dominance model of social perception apply?

Over the past 10 years, Oosterhof and Todorov's valence-dominance model has emerged as the most prominent account of how people evaluate faces on social dimensions. In this model, two dimensions (valence and dominance) underpin social judgements of faces. Because this model has primarily been developed and tested in Western regions, it is unclear whether these findings apply to other regions.

The importance of first impression judgements in interspecies interactions.

Close human-wildlife interactions are rapidly growing, particularly due to wildlife tourism popularity. Using both laboratory and ecological observation studies we explored potential interspecies communication signalling mechanisms underpinning human-animal approach behaviour, which to date have been unclear. First impression ratings (n = 227) of Barbary macaques' social and health traits were related to the macaques' facial morphology and their observed behaviour supporting a shared facial signalling system in primates.

Face morphing attacks: Investigating detection with humans and computers.

Background: In recent years, fraudsters have begun to use readily accessible digital manipulation techniques in order to carry out face morphing attacks. By submitting a morph image (a 50/50 average of two people's faces) for inclusion in an official document such as a passport, it might be possible that both people sufficiently resemble the morph that they are each able to use the resulting genuine ID document. Limited research with low-quality morphs has shown that human detection rates were poor but that training methods can improve performance.

Familiarity does not inhibit image-specific encoding of faces.

When matching and recognizing familiar faces, performance is unaffected by changes to image-specific details such as lighting, head angle, and expression. In contrast, these changes have a substantial impact on performance when faces are unfamiliar. What process can account for this difference? Recent evidence shows a memory disadvantage for remembering specific images of familiar people compared to unfamiliar people, suggesting that image invariance in familiar face processing may be supported by loss of image-specific details in memory.

Making a Spectacle of Yourself: The Effect of Glasses and Sunglasses on Face Perception.

We investigated the effect of wearing glasses and sunglasses on the perception of social traits from faces and on face matching. Participants rated images of people wearing no glasses, glasses and sunglasses on three social traits (trustworthiness, competence and attractiveness). Wearing sunglasses reduced ratings of trustworthiness.

Face averages and multiple images in a live matching task.

We know from previous research that unfamiliar face matching (determining whether two simultaneously presented images show the same person or not) is very error-prone. A small number of studies in laboratory settings have shown that the use of multiple images or a face average, rather than a single image, can improve face matching performance. Here, we tested 1,999 participants using four-image arrays and face averages in two separate live matching tasks.

Inter-rater agreement in trait judgements from faces.

Researchers have long been interested in how social evaluations are made based upon first impressions of faces. It is also important to consider the level of agreement we see in such evaluations across raters and what this may tell us. Typically, high levels of inter-rater agreement for facial judgements are reported, but the measures used may be misleading.

What makes a face photo a 'good likeness'?

Photographs of people are commonly said to be 'good likenesses' or 'poor likenesses', and this is a concept that we readily understand. Despite this, there has been no systematic investigation of what makes an image a good likeness, or of which cognitive processes are involved in making such a judgement. In three experiments, we investigate likeness judgements for different types of images: natural images of film stars (Experiment 1), images of film stars from specific films (Experiment 2), and iconic images and face averages (Experiment 3).

Forming impressions of facial attractiveness is mandatory.

First impressions of social traits, such as attractiveness, from faces are often claimed to be made automatically, given their speed and reliability. However, speed of processing is only one aspect of automaticity. Here we address a further aspect, asking whether impression formation is mandatory.

Learning faces from variability.

Research on face learning has tended to use sets of images that vary systematically on dimensions such as pose and illumination. In contrast, we have proposed that exposure to naturally varying images of a person may be a critical part of the familiarization process. Here, we present two experiments investigating face learning with "ambient images"-relatively unconstrained photos taken from internet searches.

Viewers extract the mean from images of the same person: A route to face learning.

Research on ensemble encoding has found that viewers extract summary information from sets of similar items. When shown a set of four faces of different people, viewers merge identity information from the exemplars into a representation of the set average. Here, we presented sets containing unconstrained images of the same identity.

Viewers base estimates of face matching accuracy on their own familiarity: Explaining the photo-ID paradox.

Matching two different images of a face is a very easy task for familiar viewers, but much harder for unfamiliar viewers. Despite this, use of photo-ID is widespread, and people appear not to know how unreliable it is. We present a series of experiments investigating bias both when performing a matching task and when predicting other people's performance.

Identity From Variation: Representations of Faces Derived From Multiple Instances.

Research in face recognition has tended to focus on discriminating between individuals, or "telling people apart." It has recently become clear that it is also necessary to understand how images of the same person can vary, or "telling people together." Learning a new face, and tracking its representation as it changes from unfamiliar to familiar, involves an abstraction of the variability in different images of that person's face.

Redundancy gain in binocular rivalry.

A behavioural advantage is found across a wide range of stimuli when two targets are presented in opposite hemifields compared with those targets being presented together in one hemifield, or one target being presented alone. This advantage for responses to multiple targets versus a single target is often termed redundancy gain. Here we report on the findings of two experiments investigating redundancy gain in binocular rivalry.

Eye rivalry and object rivalry in the intact and split-brain.

Both the eye of origin and the images themselves have been found to rival during binocular rivalry. We presented traditional binocular rivalry stimuli (face to one eye, house to the other) and Diaz-Caneja stimuli (half of each image to each eye) centrally to both a split-brain participant and a control group. With traditional rivalry stimuli both the split-brain participant and age-matched controls perceived more coherent percepts (synchronised across the hemifields) than non-synchrony, but our split-brain participant perceived more non-synchrony than our controls.