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Post by brandt on Feb 26, 2012 11:06:49 GMT 10
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 26, 2012 12:46:25 GMT 10
Years ago I read a study of this phenomenon. It found facial recognition in infants depends on sufficiency of information. Faces which are similar require more attention to ascertain subtle differences. Those which appear obviously distinct initially require less attention. However, subsequently, one may have difficulty distinguishing between individuals characterised by what had been thought to be obviously distinct features.
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Post by brandt on Feb 27, 2012 4:25:41 GMT 10
There is a part of our brain (two parts actually) that are responsible for most of our face processing. The fusiform face area (FFA) and the occipital face area (OFA). The FFA appears to be more of any expertise area because it is recruited by bird watchers and judges at AKA events to distinguish between difference birds or dogs. In any case the FFA is very important in processing faces. Prosopagnosia (face blindness) comes about by damage to the fusiform gyrus.
ORE/CRE is important in some of my current work because of the eyewitnesses being so bad at witnessing and because juries tend to place a lot of weight behind eyewitness testimony. We are just really bad at it and people are losing freedom because of it. It takes very little for an investigator to sway an eyewitnesses memory of events particularly when the events in question have high emotional salience.
Even trained observers are only slightly better than lay people. The old type of lineup used for witnesses to make an indentification of a suspect is loaded with problems. In ambiguous cases the witness compares the people in the lineup instead of comparing the face to memory. This happens to some degree with the sequential lineup procedure as well but this procedure does make the witness a bit more conservative in their decision-making.
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