Familiarity Is Key: Exploring the Effect of Familiarity on the Face-Voice Correlation.

Recent research has examined the extent to which face and voice processing are associated by virtue of the fact that both tap into a common person perception system. However, existing findings do not yet fully clarify the role of familiarity in this association. Given this, two experiments are presented that examine face-voice correlations for unfamiliar stimuli (Experiment 1) and for familiar stimuli (Experiment 2).

The Curious Case of Impersonators and Singers: Telling Voices Apart and Telling Voices Together under Naturally Challenging Listening Conditions.

Vocal identity processing depends on the ability to two instances of different speakers whilst also being able to two instances of the same speaker. Whilst previous research has examined these voice processing capabilities under relatively common listening conditions, it has not yet tested the limits of these capabilities. Here, two studies are presented that employ challenging listening tasks to determine just how good we are at these voice processing tasks.

Sorting through the impact of familiarity when processing vocal identity: Results from a voice sorting task.

The present article reports on one experiment designed to examine the importance of familiarity when processing vocal identity. A voice sorting task was used with participants who were either personally familiar or unfamiliar with three speakers. The results suggested that familiarity supported both an ability to tell different instances of the same voice together, and to tell similar instances of different voices apart.

A sound effect: Exploration of the distinctiveness advantage in voice recognition.

Two experiments are presented, which explore the presence of a distinctiveness advantage when recognising unfamiliar voices. In Experiment 1, distinctive voices were recognised significantly better, and with greater confidence, in a sequential same/different matching task compared with typical voices. These effects were replicated and extended in Experiment 2, as distinctive voices were recognised better even under challenging listening conditions imposed by nonsense sentences and temporal reversal.

Training and performance measures for novices to the area of fingerprint analysis.

The data accessible here represents the training tool used with novice students prior to an assessment of their performance in a fingerprint matching task (Stevenage and Pitfield, 2016; Stevenage and Bennett, in preparation) [1,2]. The training tool was compiled following semi-structured interviews with practicing fingerprint experts within the UK (Stevenage and Pitfield, 2016) [1], and has been verified as being a useful summary document by a subset of these experts. Also provided are the performance data of trained student participants on a fingerprint matching task.

Drawing a distinction between familiar and unfamiliar voice processing: A review of neuropsychological, clinical and empirical findings.

Thirty years on from their initial observation that familiar voice recognition is not the same as unfamiliar voice discrimination (van Lancker and Kreiman, 1987), the current paper reviews available evidence in support of a distinction between familiar and unfamiliar voice processing. Here, an extensive review of the literature is provided, drawing on evidence from four domains of interest: the neuropsychological study of healthy individuals, neuropsychological investigation of brain-damaged individuals, the exploration of voice recognition deficits in less commonly studied clinical conditions, and finally empirical data from healthy individuals. All evidence is assessed in terms of its contribution to the question of interest - is familiar voice processing distinct from unfamiliar voice processing.

A biased opinion: Demonstration of cognitive bias on a fingerprint matching task through knowledge of DNA test results.

One study is presented which explores the biasing effects of irrelevant contextual information on a fingerprint matching task. Bias was introduced by providing the outcomes of a DNA test relating to each fictitious case under consideration. This was engineered to suggest either a match, no match, or an inconclusive outcome, and was thus either consistent, misleading or unbiased depending on the ground truth of each fingerprint pair.

Comparing Machine Learning Classifiers and Linear/Logistic Regression to Explore the Relationship between Hand Dimensions and Demographic Characteristics.

Understanding the relationship between physiological measurements from human subjects and their demographic data is important within both the biometric and forensic domains. In this paper we explore the relationship between measurements of the human hand and a range of demographic features. We assess the ability of linear regression and machine learning classifiers to predict demographics from hand features, thereby providing evidence on both the strength of relationship and the key features underpinning this relationship.

Data from a fingerprint matching task with experts, trained students and untrained novices.

The data described here provide standard performance measures following administration of a fingerprint matching task to expert analysts, trained students and novice control participants. Measures include accuracy on 'same' and 'different' trials, and the associated measures of sensitivity of discrimination (d') and response bias (C). In addition, speed of correct response is provided.

Fact or friction: Examination of the transparency, reliability and sufficiency of the ACE-V method of fingerprint analysis.

Three studies are presented which provide a mixed methods exploration of fingerprint analysis. Using a qualitative approach (Expt 1), expert analysts used a 'think aloud' task to describe their process of analysis. Thematic analysis indicated consistency of practice, and experts' comments underpinned the development of a training tool for subsequent use.

Testing the reliability of hands and ears as biometrics: the importance of viewpoint.

Two experiments are presented to explore the limits when matching a sample to a suspect utilising the hand as a novel biometric. The results of Experiment 1 revealed that novice participants were able to match hands at above-chance levels as viewpoint changed. Notably, a moderate change in viewpoint had no notable effect, but a more substantial change in viewpoint affected performance significantly.

Soft Biometrics; Human Identification Using Comparative Descriptions.

Soft biometrics are a new form of biometric identification which use physical or behavioral traits that can be naturally described by humans. Unlike other biometric approaches, this allows identification based solely on verbal descriptions, bridging the semantic gap between biometrics and human description. To permit soft biometric identification the description must be accurate, yet conventional human descriptions comprising of absolute labels and estimations are often unreliable.

Recognition by association: Within- and cross-modality associative priming with faces and voices.

Recent literature has raised the suggestion that voice recognition runs in parallel to face recognition. As a result, a prediction can be made that voices should prime faces and faces should prime voices. A traditional associative priming paradigm was used in two studies to explore within-modality priming and cross-modality priming.

When the face fits: recognition of celebrities from matching and mismatching faces and voices.

The results of two experiments are presented in which participants engaged in a face-recognition or a voice-recognition task. The stimuli were face-voice pairs in which the face and voice were co-presented and were either "matched" (same person), "related" (two highly associated people), or "mismatched" (two unrelated people). Analysis in both experiments confirmed that accuracy and confidence in face recognition was consistently high regardless of the identity of the accompanying voice.

The effect of distraction on face and voice recognition.

The results of two experiments are presented which explore the effect of distractor items on face and voice recognition. Following from the suggestion that voice processing is relatively weak compared to face processing, it was anticipated that voice recognition would be more affected by the presentation of distractor items between study and test compared to face recognition. Using a sequential matching task with a fixed interval between study and test that either incorporated distractor items or did not, the results supported our prediction.

Familiarity and face processing.

The results of three experiments explore the role of familiarity in face processing. Using the complete-over-part advantage (Experiment 1) and the chimeric faces task (Experiment 2), the results revealed evidence for what may be termed "holistic processing" of unfamiliar, newly learned, and famous faces. Notably, the extent of holistic processing on both tasks was not moderated by the familiarity of the stimuli.

The influence of disfigurement on conversational recall.

Two experiments are reported which examine the degree to which conversational recall is affected by facial disfigurement. In Experiment 1, participants viewed a video interview and then immediately recalled the information given by the speaker. Recall fell from 68 per cent to 52 per cent when a fake disfigurement was visible on the speaker's face.

Making heads turn: the effect of familiarity and stimulus rotation on a gender-classification task.

Recent work has demonstrated that facial familiarity can moderate the influence of inversion when completing a configural processing task. Here, we examine whether familiarity interacts with intermediate angles of orientation in the same way that it interacts with inversion. Participants were asked to make a gender classification to familiar and unfamiliar faces shown at seven angles of orientation.

Haven't we met before? The effect of facial familiarity on repetition priming.

Within the word recognition literature, word-frequency and hence familiarity has been shown to affect the degree of repetition priming. The current paper reports two experiments which examine whether familiarity also affects the degree of repetition priming for faces. The results of Experiment 1 confirmed that familiarity did moderate the degree of priming in a face recognition task.

By which name should I call thee? The consequences of having multiple names.

The nominal competitor effect suggests that, when a person has two names associated with them, recall of either name is more difficult than if they just had one name. Drawing on a connectionist framework, this effect could arise either if multiple names were represented as being connected to a single person identity node (PIN), or if multiple names were represented as being connected via one-to-one links to multiple PINs. Whilst the latter has intuitive appeal, results from two experiments support the former architecture.

The role of familiarity in a face classification task using thatcherized faces.

Two experiments are reported to test the proposition that facial familiarity influences processing on a face classification task. Thatcherization was used to generate distorted versions of familiar and unfamiliar individuals. Using both a 2AFC (which is "odd"?) task to pairs of images (Experiment 1) and an "odd/normal" task to single images (Experiment 2), results were consistent and indicated that familiarity with the target face facilitated the face classification decision.