Digital tech can significantly improve identification accuracy compared to existing procedures used by police.
Tech can help improve identification accuracy.
Allowing eyewitnesses to dynamically explore digital faces using a new interactive procedure can significantly improve identification accuracy compared to the video lineup and photo array procedures used by police worldwide, a new study reveals.
Interactive lineups present digital 3D faces that witnesses can rotate and view from different angles using a computer mouse - enabling witnesses to actively explore and match faces to their recollection.
Publishing their findings in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, psychologists found that the interactive procedure enhanced people’s ability to correctly identify perpetrators and avoid misidentifications.
Witnesses were much better at telling innocent from guilty suspects using the interactive lineups. This technology creates retrieval conditions that boost memory performance.
Lead author and PhD student Marlene Meyer from the School of Psychology at the University of Birmingham said: "Witnesses were much better at telling innocent from guilty suspects using the interactive lineups. This technology creates retrieval conditions that boost memory performance."
Researchers recruited 550 volunteer ‘witnesses’ to test ability to make a correct identification of previously seen individuals. To test their memories, witnesses were shown images of the perpetrator, alongside filler images of similar faces. The researchers found that presenting the images via interactive lineups improved accuracy by 27-35% over photo arrays and 35-75% over video lineups.
Professor Heather Flowe from the School of Psychology at the University of Birmingham and senior author of the paper commented: “By integrating this technology, we may observe a dramatic reduction in identification errors, which will pave the way towards more just outcomes in criminal investigations and proceedings around the world. This tech update to police procedures warrants further testing and adoption to prevent wrongful convictions."
The study is the first to experimentally compare interactive lineups against police video lineups and photo arrays. The results, showing interactive lineups' superiority over the two most widely used identification procedures used by law enforcement, could potentially revolutionise how law enforcement agencies conduct eyewitness identification.
“This study highlights the exciting potential of interactive lineups,” said Matt Whitwam, Director of Promaps, a software company that supplies police forces with lineup technology. “We look forward to working with law enforcement to test interactive systems that harness technological advances for more accurate investigations.”
For more information, contact Tony Moran, International Communications Manager or call +44 (0)7827 832312 or pressoffice@contacts.bham.ac.uk
The University of Birmingham is ranked amongst the world’s top institutions, its work brings people from across the world to Birmingham, including researchers and teachers and more than 8,000 international students from over 150 countries.
‘Enabling witnesses to actively explore faces increases discrimination accuracy’ - Meyer, M., Colloff, M. F., Bennett, T. C., Hirata, E., Kohl, A., Stevens, L. M., Smith, H., Saudigl, T., & Flowe, H. D is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
In addition to Marlene Meyer and Heather Flowe, co-authors of the study include Melissa Colloff, Tia Bennett, Edward Hirata, Amelia Kohl, and Laura Stevens from the University of Birmingham, UK; Harriet Smith from Nottingham Trent University, UK; and Tobias Saudigl from Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Germany.
Professor of Psychology
Staff profile for Dr Heather Flowe, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham. Dr Heather Flowe's lab conducts research on applied cognition.
