Name: holistic facial composite creation and subsequent video line-up eyewitness identification paradigm
Uploaded: 2015-12-24T15:00:00
Duration: 9 min 49 s
Description: Watch this Scientific Journal Video about Holistic Facial Composite Creation and Subsequent Video Line-up Eyewitness Identification Paradigm at JoVE.com

The research was partly funded by an internal University of Greenwich grant to the first and third authors. Thanks go to Dominic Goodchild, Chris Hughes, Adrian Ibanescu, Corrado Ranelli, and Charlie Shaw for acting as culprit-actors in the crime scene videos, and to Henry DC Williams for filming and directing the crime scene videos. Thanks also to Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville, Inspector Barry Burnell and Sergeant Nick Milbourn from the Metropolitan Police Service for creating and supplying the PROMAT video line-ups for the project and advising on the design and video line-up procedure. Thanks also to Detective Constable Tony Barnes of the Metropolitan Police Service for providing advice on the use of the specific holistic facial composite system in police investigations, and allowing the second author of this paper, who is the composite operator depicted in the videos, to shadow him while working with eyewitnesses to create facial composites during investigations into real crimes.

Solomon and Gibson are faculty members of the University of Kent and directors of VisionMetric Ltd. VisionMetric Ltd market the EFIT-V facial composite system. Solomon and Gibson&#8217;s contribution to this work was to facilitate operator training that took place at the University of Kent, development of the software and provision of software support, and assistance with manuscript preparation. Data collection, analysis, interpretation, and manuscript preparation were performed by Davis, Jolliffe and Maigut who have nothing to disclose.

The creation of a facial composite may provide the first lead in a police investigation 1. A composite constructing witness may subsequently be asked to view a line-up containing the police suspect. The police suspect may in fact be the guilty culprit, in which case the line-up will be culprit-present, or they may be innocent, and the line-up will be culprit-absent. The applied experimental paradigm described here has been employed in research demonstrating the positive influence of holistic facial composite production on correct culprit-actor selections from culprit-present sequential nine-person video line-up procedures, without having any impact on culprit-absent procedures 11. The paradigm possesses strong forensic and ecological validity as it closely replicates police procedures used in England and Wales. Indeed, although not a central component of the analyses, the protocol closely follows the type of interview procedures (e.g., Cognitive Interview 23-24) that the police may employ in these circumstances, although it would be of interest to vary components of the Cognitive Interview in future research to examine this as a separate variable. Furthermore, even though a description is not actually required for holistic composite construction, an operator will still ask a witness to describe the culprit in order to demonstrate good practice, as if the description and appearance of the composite match, it suggests no undue influence on construction from the operator (for instance, concerns might be raised in court if the composite and police suspect possess blond hair, the description dark hair).
Other aspects of the procedure should be followed to enhance forensic validity. For instance, real witnesses would normally be unaware in advance that they will be witnessing a crime, and pre-warning participants that they will either create a facial composite or be asked to make an identification decision may influence the manner in which they attend to the initial video of the culprit. Therefore it is normal to avoid warning participants that the research is investigating eyewitness procedures, and for this purpose the title may often be slightly misleading (e.g., &#8220;video analysis study&#8221;). Furthermore, to avoid inadvertent experimenter bias, the various experimenter roles (e.g., composite system operator, line-up administrator) should ideally be conducted by different people. For similar reasons, the operator, who should be fully trained in the use of the composite system, and the line-up administrator, should both be unfamiliar with the culprit, and have never seen the culprit videos. Ideally, too, the line-up procedure should be conducted double-blind, to ensure no administrator bias 44-46, although double blind procedures are not prescribed in PACE Code D identification procedures for England and Wales. Similarly, PACE Code D does not require measures of identification confidence to be collected, even though as with this paradigm it is often collected for research purposes. Indeed, confidence may provide a marker for line-up accuracy. As such, there is normally a strong positive relationship between confidence and accuracy in line-up choosers, but not non-choosers 47-49.
The basic paradigm could also easily be adapted for use with different types of facial composite system (see for example 11 in which the influence on video lineup outcomes of creating a feature-based facial composite was compared with creating a holistic system composite). There are a number of available holistic composite systems, and although all work on holistic principles, the interfaces differ 13-15. The paradigm would also allow for comparisons with different types of line-up that may be standard in the UK or other legal jurisdictions. For instance, in the USA, most identification procedures are six-person sequential or simultaneous photographic line-ups 33-36, whereas Poland mainly employs four-person simultaneous line-ups 50. Although nowadays very rare in the UK, some jurisdictions elsewhere may still regularly employ live line-ups with all members present in person. For the purposes of the experimental paradigm described here an additional foil was chosen by random from the nine selected by the police officer line-up administrator to replace the culprit in the culprit-absent line-up. However, some eyewitness identification paradigms, may, in advance, specifically select an &#8216;innocent suspect&#8217; for this purpose. A culprit-absent line-up will therefore be created that might contain a number of different foils from those included in the culprit-present line-up e.g., 51, as a real police line-up will be individualized to the specific suspect. To further examine the influence of composite creation on line-up outcomes, combining the results of culprit-present and culprit-absent line-ups would also inform as to whether memory sensitivity or response bias to make a selection is influenced (see for example 52 which discusses the use of signal detection measures for this type of analysis).
In addition, there are many variables that are known to affect face recognition and eyewitness identification accuracy, and the design could accommodate the testing of these to examine whether they provide an additional influence when facial composite production is followed by a line-up (e.g., culprit-actor gender, age, or ethnicity; participant confidence, delay between procedures; foil selection methods, participant culprit view quality; witness description quality; for a review of &#8216;estimator&#8217; variables of this type see 53). Nevertheless, one issue with this type of design is that large numbers of participants are required for sufficient statistical power, as line-up responses are primarily dichotomous in nature (e.g., correct vs. incorrect), and as with a real police investigation most participants will create one composite and view one line-up only. Furthermore, the design is time-consuming. To replicate police investigations, there should ideally be a delay between the three phases of the study, and composite construction alone can often take over an hour. Despite these issues, it is important that new technology that may be employed by the police during an investigation (e.g., a facial composite system), is empirically tested in the laboratory to investigate the effect this technology has on subsequent investigatory procedures (e.g., line-ups). The fate of a real police suspect, regardless of guilt, may partly depend on whether best practice is followed or not.

If the police have no suspect for a crime, an eyewitness, often the victim; may create a facial composite of the culprit from memory with the assistance of a police system operator 1. The aim is that someone familiar with the culprit will recognize that image. An identified suspect &#8212; who may not be the actual culprit &#8212; may be placed in a line-up to see whether the original eyewitness can identify them or not. Many eyewitnesses make misidentifications. From real police line-ups over 20% identify a foil in the UK 2 and the USA 3, known to be innocent but included in the line-up to provide a test of the witness&#8217; memory of the culprit. Sometimes, witnesses select a factually innocent police suspect. This type of error may be the leading cause of wrongful convictions 4-6. Eyewitnesses created facial composites in 46 of the first 250 US DNA-exoneration miscarriage of justice cases 4, and many subsequently identified the innocent individual from a line-up. There may have been alternative inculpating evidence, so that the facial composite procedure was not necessarily responsible. However, line-up accuracy can be impaired e.g., 7-10, unaffected e.g.,8, or enhanced e.g., 11,12 by composite creation, and the aim of applied research of the type described here is to suggest best practice procedures that may be adopted by the police, when facial composite construction is followed by a line-up.
Police forces in many countries employ computerized holistic facial composite systems e.g., 13-15, replacing the previously ubiquitous feature-based systems (for reviews of composite systems see 16-17). This is mainly because holistic systems more closely match the whole face &#8216;Gestaltic&#8217; manner in which humans of all ages process and recognize faces e.g., 18-20. With feature-based systems, witnesses are required to first, verbally recall the suspect&#8217;s facial features (e.g., eyes, nose, and mouth), second, to locate these individual features from often limited feature databases and third, to assemble them into a whole composite. Each step is cognitively demanding &#8212; few people possess the vocabulary to provide a detailed facial description, feature-by-feature facial analysis is prone to error, and verbal recall tends to be less accurate than recognition, possibly due to a mismatch between the modality in which faces are encoded (visual mode), and the retrieval of the face from memory (verbal mode) 21-22. Not surprisingly feature-based composites are often a poor culprit likeness 16-17.
With holistic facial composite systems 13-15, witnesses select from a series of realistic but computer-generated facial arrays, the image that most closely matches their memory of the culprit. Thus the primary retrieval mode is visual, matching the mode in which faces are encoded. The interfaces of the different systems vary, including whether images are in color or not, array numbers, and whether the witness views whole faces, or faces with the external features removed 17. However, with all holistic systems, successive arrays of images are used to achieve a step-by-step improvement in composite-to-culprit likeness. At each step, the faces comprising an array are determined by the witness&#8217; previous selection(s) and an evolutionary algorithm. The witness selects a face from the array, and the evolutionary algorithm breeds those selections to create the new generation of faces in the following array. Additional tools can add clothing, tattoos, facial hair or other individuating marks, manipulate facial feature size and placement, and adjust holistic properties (e.g., age, distinctiveness). The process is complete when the witness is satisfied with their composite. Throughout, the police operator advises but does not influence the procedure.
In conjunction with an initial Cognitive Interview 23-24, with an emphasis on the free recall component which facilitates information quality and quantity, holistic system production promotes whole face recognition, rather than as required with feature-based systems &#8212; analyses of isolated facial features. Manipulation of facial features and their configurations always occurs within the context of a whole face, and as a consequence, holistic system composites are often of higher quality, and recognized more readily by people familiar with those depicted than composites created using feature-based systems 17, 25-26. Police field surveys also suggest that holistic system composites generate higher rates of suspect identification e.g., 27-28. Furthermore, even children as young as six-years-of age 8, and adults with intellectual disabilities 29 can understand their task demands. For these reasons, particularly if a witness has difficulty in describing a face, the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) in England and Wales recommend the use of holistic systems 30.
Once a potential suspect has been identified by the police, they may ask the composite-creating witness to view that suspect in a line-up or identity parade. Some research has found that composite creation enhances identification accuracy, when performance is compared with non-composite creating controls e.g., 11-12. Other research, primarily employing feature-based systems has found that composite creation negatively impacts identification performance e.g., 7, 9-10. If a composite is a poor likeness to the culprit, identification accuracy appears most susceptible 8, 10. This suggests that for creating witnesses, a facial composite may provide a more salient memory trace than that of the original suspect. Nevertheless, all other things being equal, the chances of a correct identification should be enhanced by the creation of a holistic system composite, as these are likely to be closer in likeness to the culprit than a feature-based composite.
The research paradigm described here closely replicates a design and procedure used with young adult 8, 11, 31, child 8, and older adult 31 participants. Composite creating participant-witnesses and non-composite creating controls view an initial &#8216;culprit-actor&#8217; crime scene video. After a delay, the participant-witnesses construct a holistic system facial composite. Subsequently, after a further delay, all participants attempt to identify the suspect from a video line-up, the technology used in virtually all of approximately 110,000 formal identification procedures per annum in the UK 2,32. The mean delay between crime scene video viewing and line-up will be equal for both groups. Based on a large body of empirical research, there is an ongoing debate as to the best procedure for conducting a line-up. Some researchers have argued in favor of sequential line-ups over the alternative simultaneous line-ups e.g., 33-34. Others have an opposing view e.g.,35-36. However, correct identification rates are higher from video line-ups than the often recommended US sequential procedure 37-38. Regardless, the methodology described here has strong ecological validity as it closely matches procedures used in real police investigations, and could be adapted for use with different line-up types. Methods of ensuring that the line-up is &#8216;fair&#8217; to the suspect are also described 39-40. In addition, the holistic composite system employed is the standard used by the majority of UK police forces, the interviewing techniques are those normally used by police composite operators, and the video line-ups were constructed by the London Metropolitan Police Service as though a real investigation, following guidelines in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) Codes of Practice (Code D), which prescribes police identification procedures in England and Wales 41. Furthermore, the design is flexible, allowing for the measurement of alternative variables that might impact on composite quality and identification accuracy (e.g., composite system, culprit-actor gender, age, or ethnicity; delay between procedures).
In making decisions as to whether to publicize a facial composite or not, the police operator will likely ask the creating-witness to assess final composite quality. For this paradigm, following construction, each participant-witness rates their composite for likeness to their memory of the culprit. These ratings are compared to those provided by independent assessors &#8212; highly familiar with the person the composite is supposed to depict, so as to provide a more objective recognisability measure. These ratings serve as a proxy for the more ecologically valid method of asking people familiar with the culprit to attempt to name the composite. However, assessor ratings correlate with naming rates suggesting they are essentially measuring the same construct 42. They also positively correlate with adult, but not child participant-witness creator assessments of quality 8.
In summary, this paradigm employs an independent measures design. The first factor is participant role &#8212; participants are allocated to either the participant-witness composite creating group or the non-composite creating control group. The second factor is culprit presence&#160;&#8212; participants are presented with a culprit-present video line-up containing the culprit viewed in the original crime scene video, or a culprit-absent line-up in which the culprit is replaced by an additional foil. A third factor, if varied, is the delay between viewing the crime scene video and the line-up. The primary dependent variable is line-up accuracy. Within the participant-witness composite-creating group, a correlational design measures the relationship between ratings of composite-culprit similarity provided by participant-witnesses and independent assessors, some of whom should be acquaintances of the culprit. The relationship between the composite-culprit similarity ratings and video line-up accuracy is also examined.

<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="580">
	<tbody>
		<tr height="43">
			<td height="43" style="height:43px;width:163px;">Video Line-ups</td>
			<td style="width:131px;">Promat Envision International</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">PROMAT</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">Website: http://www.promatenvision.co.uk Contact: info@promatenvision.co.uk&#160;</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="20">
			<td height="20" style="height:20px;">Statistics Software</td>
			<td>IBM</td>
			<td>SPSS Statistics 20</td>
			<td>Website: http://www-01.ibm.com/software/uk/analytics/spss/ Contact: +44 (0) 870 542 6426</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="20">
			<td height="20" style="height:20px;">Online Survey Tool</td>
			<td>Qualtrics</td>
			<td>Qualtrics</td>
			<td>Website:&#160; http://www.qualtrics.com Contact: 1-800-340-9194</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="25">
			<td height="25" style="height:25px;">Facial Composite System</td>
			<td>VisionMetric Ltd</td>
			<td>EFIT-V 5.006</td>
			<td>Website: http://www.visionmetric.com/ Contact: efit@visionmetric.com.</td>
		</tr>
	</tbody>
</table>

holistic facial composite creation and subsequent video line-up eyewitness identification paradigm

The paradigm detailed in this manuscript describes an applied experimental method based on real police investigations during which an eyewitness or victim to a crime may create from memory a holistic facial composite of the culprit with the assistance of a police operator. The aim is that the composite is recognized by someone who believes that they know the culprit. For this paradigm, participants view a culprit actor on video and following a delay, participant-witnesses construct a holistic system facial composite. Controls do not construct a composite. From a series of arrays of computer-generated, but realistic faces, the holistic system construction method primarily requires participant-witnesses to select the facial images most closely meeting their memory of the culprit. Variation between faces in successive arrays is reduced until ideally the final image possesses a close likeness to the culprit. Participant-witness directed tools can also alter facial features, configurations between features and holistic properties (e.g., age, distinctiveness, skin tone), all within a whole face context. The procedure is designed to closely match the holistic manner by which humans&#8217; process faces. On completion, based on their memory of the culprit, ratings of composite-culprit similarity are collected from the participant-witnesses. Similar ratings are collected from culprit-acquaintance assessors, as a marker of composite recognition likelihood. Following a further delay, all participants &#8212; including the controls&#160;&#8212; attempt to identify the culprit in either a culprit-present or culprit-absent video line-up, to replicate circumstances in which the police have located the correct culprit, or an innocent suspect. Data of control and participant-witness line-up outcomes are presented, demonstrating the positive influence of holistic composite construction on identification accuracy. Correlational analyses are conducted to measure the relationship between assessor and participant-witness composite-culprit similarity ratings, delay, identification accuracy, and confidence to examine which factors influence video line-up outcomes.

The data reported here are a subset of data collected in two studies in which the described experimental paradigm was partially followed 8, 11.
Line-up fairness checks
The pilot mock witness paradigm described in Section 6, is designed to ensure that the line-up is not biased against a suspect, in that they should not stand out in any manner to induce selection more often than would be expected by chance 39, 40. From this procedure, a measure of line-up fairness is calculated by ensuring no member is selected significantly more often than would be expected by chance alone by the mock witnesses (e.g., 1/9 = 11.1%). Tredoux&#8217;s E 39 measure of functional size is applied to assess the number of line-up members who are &#8216;plausible&#8217;, and in a real line-up would provide a suitable test of the witness&#8217; memory. Ideally this value should be close to the maximum (e.g., nine). For the representative data reported in 11 the line-up was found to be fair as mock witnesses selected the culprit at close to chance levels (10.9%), and the vast majority of foils were plausible (Tredoux&#8217;s E = 7.05).
Matched condition checks
The next analysis uses an independent-measures t-test 43 to ensure that the ratings of prospective confidence in being able to recognize the culprit, collected shortly after the participants view the crime scene video are approximately equal in the two experimental conditions (see 1.6). The outcome should be non-significant. In 11, the responses on this scale described in 1.6 were as expected approximately equal, t(266) = .57, p &#62; .2, indicating the participants were matched prior to any other procedure.
Composite-culprit similarity ratings
To test hypotheses concerning the objectivity of the participant-witness&#8217; self-assessments of their own composites, the second analysis examines whether there is a relationship between the composite-suspect similarity ratings provided by the participant-witnesses to their own composite only (see Section 3), and those provided by the independent culprit-acquaintance assessors (see Section 4). In 8, a Pearson&#8217;s correlation test 43 on the ratings provided to all 57 holistic facial composites was non-significant. However, when follow-up analyses were conducted with child- and adult-participant-witness data separated, there was a positive relationship between these ratings to the 26 adult composites, r(26) = .46, p &#60; .05; but not to the 31 children&#8217;s composites, r(31) = .01, p &#62; .2; an indication that adult witnesses, but not children, can provide objective assessments of the quality of their own composites.
Video line-up responses
To test hypotheses related to line-up performance, hierarchical loglinear analyses 43, or chi-square tests 43 examine the effects of experimental condition on line-up outcomes (see 7.9). The reported effect size measure for these nominal data analyses is &#934;, although odds ratios (OR) are also reported to provide a measure of the association between the two reported variables. As with most eyewitness research, culprit-present and culprit-absent video line-up data are separated. Each participant makes one line-up decision only.
The influence of composite construction on eyewitness identification is measured by comparing the line-up selections of participant-witnesses and controls. Table 3 displays representative results taken from a subset of the data collected in Experiment 1 of 11 in which control line-up outcomes were compared with participant-witnesses who created a holistic facial composite using the system described in this protocol. The delay between viewing the initial culprit crime scene video and the video line-up in this experiment was approximately 2 hr.
Culprit-present line-ups provide an indication of the sensitivity of an identification procedure as measured primarily by suspect identification rates, which in this paradigm are correct culprit identifications. Other outcomes are incorrect foil identifications or incorrect line-up rejections.
Culprit-absent line-ups provide an indication of the fairness of the procedure, as measured by correct line-up rejection rates. Other outcomes are incorrect foil identifications. There was no designated &#8216;innocent suspect&#8217; in this research, and therefore the first column in Table 3 is blank for culprit-absent trials.
Culprit-present choosing behavior: From the data reported in Table 3 originally presented in Experiment 1 in 11, the first analysis examines whether composite creation influences choosing behavior from a line-up as this may be indicative of a response bias. A 2 (participant role - participant-witness vs. control) x 2 (choosing behavior &#8211; chooser: culprit identification or foil identification vs. non-chooser: incorrect line-up rejection) chi-squared test 43 on the rates of selection of each outcome was not significant, &#967;2(1, n = 108) &#60; 1, p &#62; .2, &#934; = .072. Participant-witnesses (80.0%) were roughly equally likely as controls to be line-up choosers (73.1%, OR = 1.09).
Culprit-present correct identifications: The second and most critical culprit-present analysis examines response accuracy only. A 2 (participant role) x 2 (accuracy &#8212; correct: culprit identification vs. incorrect: foil identification or line-up rejection) chi-squared test 43 on the data from Table 3 first presented in Experiment 1 in 11 was significant, &#967;2(1, n = 108) = 5.48, p = .019, &#934; = .225. Participant-witnesses (70.0%) made approximately one-and-a-half times more correct culprit line-up selections than controls (44.9%, OR = 1.56).
These results are consistent with a follow-up experiment (Experiment 2 11) in which newly qualified police operators were recruited, the crime scene videos depicted six different culprits, and the mean delay between crime scene video viewing and viewing the video line-up was approximately 30 hr (participant-witness correct culprit identification rates = 48.8%; controls = 35.0%), and a meta-analysis finding positive effects of composite construction on line-up identification 12. However, other research 8, using the same basic experimental paradigm, holistic facial composite system, and line-up type, but with different culprit-actors found no significant differences in correct identification rates between adult composite-creating participant-witnesses (34.6%) and controls (31.7%). Furthermore, in that research 8, child controls between the ages of 6- and 11-years made more correct identifications (42.9%) than child participant-witnesses of the same age (19.4%). The latter result may be a consequence of the children&#8217;s facial composite being significantly inferior to the adult&#8217;s, children&#8217;s initial memory for the culprit being worse or they struggled to understand the use of confidence scales. However, this result is consistent with research finding a positive relationship between composite quality and rates of correct identification from line-ups 10. This explanation is also consistent with most previous research of this type, which has used the often inferior feature-based composite systems, finding that identification accuracy was reduced following composite construction e.g., 7, 9-10.
Culprit-present foil identifications: The third culprit&#8211;present analysis examines whether the proportion of foil identifications differs by condition. A 2 (participant role) x 2 (foil or not &#8212; foil identification vs. other decision: correct culprit identification or incorrect line-up rejection) chi-squared test 43 on the data reported in Table 3 and 11 was significant, &#967;2(1, n = 108) = 4.04, p = .045, &#934; = .193. Controls (28.2%) made nearly three times as many foil selections as participant-witnesses (10.0%; OR = 2.82).
Culprit-absent lineup rejections: As there are only two outcomes associated with the culprit-absent data from Table 3 as originally reported in 11, only one test is conducted. A 2 (condition) x 2 (accuracy &#8212; correct line-up rejection vs. incorrect foil identification) chi-squared test 43 was not significant, &#967;2(1, n = 100) &#60; 1, p &#62; .2, &#934; = .055. There were no differences in correct line-up rejection rates between participant-witnesses (44.4%) and controls (38.4%; OR = 1.16). These results are consistent with previous research finding similar null effects in culprit-absent trials 10.
Relationship between composite quality and participant-witness line-up accuracy
A further analysis examines the relationship between the quality of the facial composites and the likelihood of correct culprit video line-up identifications. The representative data reported here are from the second experiment reported in 11 in which all line-ups were culprit-present. A point biserial correlation test 43 conducted on the relationship between line-up accuracy (1 = correct; 0 = incorrect) and culprit-acquaintance ratings of culprit-composite similarity, was not significant, r(45) = -.05, p &#62; .2, suggesting that unlike some previous research 8, 10, there was no relationship between the quality of the participant-witness&#8217; facial composite and the accuracy of their video line-up responses. This unexpected non-significant finding may be the result of a number of extraneous variables (e.g., delay, multiple culprit-actor variables).
<table fo:keep-together.within-page="1">
	<tbody>
		<tr>
			<td></td>
			<td>Total</td>
			<td colspan="2">Suspect ID</td>
			<td colspan="2">Foil ID</td>
			<td colspan="2">Line-up rejection</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td></td>
			<td>n</td>
			<td>n</td>
			<td>%</td>
			<td>n</td>
			<td>%</td>
			<td>n</td>
			<td>%</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td colspan="8">Culprit-present</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Controls</td>
			<td>78</td>
			<td>35</td>
			<td>44.9</td>
			<td>22</td>
			<td>28.2</td>
			<td>21</td>
			<td>26.9</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Witnesses</td>
			<td>30</td>
			<td>21</td>
			<td>70.0</td>
			<td>3</td>
			<td>10.0</td>
			<td>6</td>
			<td>20.0</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td colspan="8">Culprit-absent</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Controls</td>
			<td>73</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td></td>
			<td>45</td>
			<td>61.6</td>
			<td>28</td>
			<td>38.4</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Witnesses</td>
			<td>27</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td></td>
			<td>15</td>
			<td>55.6</td>
			<td>12</td>
			<td>44.4</td>
		</tr>
	</tbody>
</table>
Table 3. Culprit-present and culprit-absent video line-up outcomes. Number of participants (n) and percentage of each type of line-up outcome as a function of culprit presence, and participant role from the subset of data originally published in Experiment 1 of 11, in which adult participant-witnesses used the same holistic composite system as described in the current protocol.

Watch this Scientific Journal Video about Holistic Facial Composite Creation and Subsequent Video Line-up Eyewitness Identification Paradigm at JoVE.com

Holistic Facial Composite Creation and Subsequent Video Line-up Eyewitness Identification Paradigm

This applied experimental paradigm replicates circumstances by which an eyewitness to a real crime may create a holistic facial composite of the culprit from memory, and then attempt to identify the culprit from a video line-up containing the culprit or one in which he or she is not present.

The paradigm detailed in this manuscript describes an applied experimental method based on real police investigations during which an eyewitness or victim ...

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Goal-directed behavior is often impaired by interference from the external environment, either in the form of distraction by irrelevant information that ...

Examining Recall Memory in Infancy and Early Childhood Using the Elicited Imitation Paradigm

The ability to recall the past allows us to report on details of previous experiences, from the everyday to the significant. Because recall memory is commonly assessed using verbal report paradigms in adults, studying the development of this ability in preverbal infants and children proved challenging. Over the past 30 years, researchers have developed a non-verbal means of assessing recall memory known as the elicited or deferred imitation paradigm. In one variant of the procedure, participants are presented with novel three-dimensional stimuli for a brief baseline period before a researcher demonstrates a series of actions that culminate in an end- or goal-state. The participant is allowed to imitate the demonstrated actions immediately, after a delay, or both. Recall performance is then compared to baseline or to performance on novel control sequences presented at the same session; memory can be assessed for the individual target actions and the order in which they were completed. This procedure is an accepted analogue to the verbal report techniques used with adults, and it has served to establish a solid foundation of the nature of recall memory in infancy and early childhood. In addition, the elicited or deferred imitation procedure has been modified and adapted to answer questions relevant to other aspects of cognitive functioning. The broad utility and application of imitation paradigms is discussed, along with limitations of the approach and directions for future research.

The elicited imitation procedure was established to examine the development of recall memory in infancy and early childhood. This procedure has been widely used to establish a solid foundation of the nature of recall memory in infancy and early childhood.

The ability to recall the past allows us to report on details of previous experiences, from the everyday to the significant. Because recall memory is ...

Protocol for Data Collection and Analysis Applied to Automated Facial Expression Analysis Technology and Temporal Analysis for Sensory Evaluation

We demonstrate a method for capturing emotional response to beverages and liquefied foods in a sensory evaluation laboratory using automated facial expression analysis (AFEA) software. Additionally, we demonstrate a method for extracting relevant emotional data output and plotting the emotional response of a population over a specified time frame. By time pairing each participant's treatment response to a control stimulus (baseline), the overall emotional response over time and across multiple participants can be quantified. AFEA is a prospective analytical tool for assessing unbiased response to food and beverages. At present, most research has mainly focused on beverages. Methodologies and analyses have not yet been standardized for the application of AFEA to beverages and foods; however, a consistent standard methodology is needed. Optimizing video capture procedures and resulting video quality aids in a successful collection of emotional response to foods. Furthermore, the methodology of data analysis is novel for extracting the pertinent data relevant to the emotional response. The combinations of video capture optimization and data analysis will aid in standardizing the protocol for automated facial expression analysis and interpretation of emotional response data.

A protocol for capturing and statistically analyzing emotional response of a population to beverages and liquefied foods in a sensory evaluation laboratory using automated facial expression analysis software is described.

We demonstrate a method for capturing emotional response to beverages and liquefied foods in a sensory evaluation laboratory using automated facial ...

Task Interruption and Resumption Paradigm for Testing the Activation and Pursuit of an Abstract Thinking Goal

This protocol is based on the task interruption and resumption paradigm, the premise of which is that active goals lead to persistent behavior and thus a higher resumption rate after a period of delay or interruption. The task interruption and resumption protocol described in this research is tailored to test the activation of cognitive goals (e.g., a goal to think more abstractly). Cognitive goals may be pursued even during the interruption period; thus, to prevent this, the protocol involves cognitive distraction. The protocol consists of several stages. Specifically, the initial stage includes the goal activation process, where the treatment (versus control) condition receives a manipulation to activate the cognitive goal being tested by the researcher. In the next stage, participants are presented with the introduction of a task that is perceived to either satisfy or not satisfy the cognitive goal of interest. Importantly, this task is interrupted a few seconds after it begins. The task interruption forces a delay period and introduces a cognitive distraction to prevent the automatic pursuit and fulfillment of the cognitive goal. After the interruption period, participants are given a choice between resuming the interrupted task and abandoning the interrupted task to complete an alternative task instead. Among participants whose cognitive goals had been activated at the earlier stage, the task resumption rate should be higher if the task was perceived as an opportunity to satisfy (versus not satisfy) the goal. Such a finding would provide empirical evidence that the cognitive goal has been activated and pursued. In previous research, this protocol has been used to test whether causal uncertainty activates an abstract thinking goal. Adapting the protocol to test the activation of other cognitive goals is also discussed.

This protocol was designed to test the activation and pursuit of cognitive goals (e.g., an abstract thinking goal) using the task interruption and resumption paradigm. The protocol is suitable for cognitive goals that are automatically pursued once activated, as the distraction procedure prevents goal pursuit during the interruption period.

This protocol is based on the task interruption and resumption paradigm, the premise of which is that active goals lead to persistent behavior and thus a ...

The Modified Temptation Resistance Task: A Paradigm to Elicit Children's Strategic Lie-telling

The protocol for the temptation resistance paradigm was designed to elicit 2- to 8-year-old children's strategic lie-telling behaviors. The reward of transgression was intended to be too tempting to resist, so that children's spontaneous lie-telling behavior in the presence of irreversible evidence due to the transgression could be observed. Conducted in a developmental psychology laboratory behind a one-way mirror and video recorded with a hidden camcorder, the protocol starts with a guessing game where the child is given three trials to guess the identities of hidden objects under an upside down cup. The experimenter gives hints in the first two trials to make sure the child "guess" them correctly. At the beginning of the final trial, the experimenter leaves the room briefly and asks the child not to peek under the cup. If the child could not resist the temptation and peeks, small particles previously filled in the cup would scatter on a grooved surface. Upon the experimenter's return, the child is asked if he/she has peeked. If he/she denies transgression contrary to the presence of the physical evidence, he/she is asked to explain why the particles are on the table. Three responses could be observed in the procedure, including the initial transgression, truth-telling or lie-telling behavior if the child peeked, and the strategic lie-telling behavior in the presence of the physical evidence.

The Modified Temptation Resistance Task: A Paradigm to Elicit Children&#039;s Strategic Lie-telling

The protocol for the temptation resistance paradigm was designed to elicit 2- to 8-year-old children&#39;s strategic lie-telling behaviors. The reward of transgression was intended to be too tempting to resist, so that children&#39;s spontaneous lie-telling behavior in the presence of irreversible evidence due to the transgression could be observed.

The protocol for the temptation resistance paradigm was designed to elicit 2- to 8-year-old children's strategic lie-telling behaviors. The reward of ...

Using Eye Movements Recorded in the Visual World Paradigm to Explore the Online Processing of Spoken Language

In a typical eye tracking study using the visual world paradigm, participants' eye movements to objects or pictures in the visual workspace are recorded via an eye tracker as the participant produces or comprehends a spoken language describing the concurrent visual world. This paradigm has high versatility, as it can be used in a wide range of populations, including those who cannot read and/or who cannot overtly give their behavioral responses, such as preliterate children, elderly adults, and patients. More importantly, the paradigm is extremely sensitive to fine grained manipulations of the speech signal, and it can be used to study the online processing of most topics in language comprehension at multiple levels, such as the fine grained acoustic phonetic features, the properties of words, and the linguistic structures. The protocol described in this article illustrates how a typical visual world eye tracking study is conducted, with an example showing how the online processing of some semantically complex statements can be explored with the visual world paradigm.

The visual world paradigm monitors participants' eye movements in the visual workspace as they are listening to or speaking a spoken language. This paradigm can be used to investigate the online processing of a wide range of psycholinguistic questions, including semantically complex statements, such as disjunctive statements.

In a typical eye tracking study using the visual world paradigm, participants' eye movements to objects or pictures in the visual workspace are recorded ...

Using the Visual World Paradigm to Study Sentence Comprehension in Mandarin-Speaking Children with Autism

Sentence comprehension relies on the ability to rapidly integrate different types of linguistic and non-linguistic information. However, there is currently a paucity of research exploring how preschool children with autism understand sentences using different types of cues. The mechanisms underlying sentence comprehension remains largely unclear. The present study presents a protocol to examine the sentence comprehension abilities of preschool children with autism. More specifically, a visual world paradigm of eye-tracking is used to explore the moment-to-moment sentence comprehension in the children. The paradigm has multiple advantages. First, it is sensitive to the time course of sentence comprehension and thus can provide rich information about how sentence comprehension unfolds over time. Second, it requires minimal task and communication demands, so it is ideal for testing children with autism. To further minimize the computational burden of children, the present study measures eye movements that arise as automatic responses to linguistic input rather than measuring eye movements that accompany conscious responses to spoken instructions.

We present a protocol to examine the use of morphological cues during real-time sentence comprehension by children with autism.

Sentence comprehension relies on the ability to rapidly integrate different types of linguistic and non-linguistic information. However, there is ...

The HoneyComb Paradigm for Research on Collective Human Behavior

Collective human behavior such as group movement frequently shows surprising patterns and regularities, such as the emergence of leadership. Recent literature has revealed that these patterns, often visible at the global level of the group, are based on self-organized, individual behaviors that follow several simple local parameters. Understanding the dynamics of human collective behavior can help to improve coordination and leadership in group and crowd scenarios, such as identifying the ideal placement and number of emergency exits in buildings.
In this article, we present the experimental paradigm HoneyComb, which can be used to systematically investigate conditions and effects of human collective behavior. This paradigm uses a computer-based multi-user platform, providing a setting that can be shaped and adapted to various types of research questions. Situational conditions (e.g., cost-benefit ratios for specific behavior, monetary incentives and resources, various degrees of uncertainty) can be set by experimenters, depending on the research question. Each participant's motions are recorded by the server as hexagonal coordinates with timestamps at an accuracy of 50 ms and with individual IDs. Thus, a metric can be defined on the playfield, and movement parameters (e.g., distances, velocity, clustering, etc.) of participants can be measured over time. Movement data can in turn be combined with non-computerized data from questionnaires garnered within the same experiment setup.
The HoneyComb paradigm is paving the way for new types of human movement experiments. We demonstrate here that these experiments can render results with sufficient internal validity to meaningfully deepen our understanding of human collective behavior.

Here, we present the computer-based, multi-agent game HoneyComb, which enables experimental investigations of collective human movement behavior via black-dot-avatars on a virtual 2D hexagonal playfield. Different experimental conditions, like variable&#160;incentives on goal fields or vision radius, can be set, and their effects on human movement behavior can be investigated.

Collective human behavior such as group movement frequently shows surprising patterns and regularities, such as the emergence of leadership. Recent ...

Using Facial Electromyography to Assess Facial Muscle Reactions to Experienced and Observed Affective Touch in Humans

"Affective" touch is believed to be processed in a manner distinct from discriminatory touch and to involve activation of C-tactile (CT) afferent fibers. Touch that optimally activates CT fibers is consistently rated as hedonically pleasant. Patient groups with impaired social-emotional functioning also show disordered affective touch ratings. However, relying on self-reported ratings of touch has many limitations, including recall bias and communication barriers. Here, we describe a methodological approach to study affective responses to touch via facial electromyography (EMG) that circumvents the reliance on self-report ratings. Facial EMG is an objective, quantitative, and non-invasive method to measure facial muscle activity indicative of affective responses. Responses can be assessed across healthy and patient populations without the need for verbal communication. Here, we provide two separate datasets demonstrating that CT-optimal and non-optimal touch elicit distinct facial muscle reactions. Moreover, facial EMG responses are consistent across stimulus modalities, e.g. tactile (experienced touch) and visual (observed touch). Finally, the temporal resolution of facial EMG can detect responses on timescales that supersede that of verbal reporting. Together, our data suggest that facial EMG is a suitable methodology for use in affective tactile research that can be used to supplement, or in some cases, supplant, existing measures.

We describe a protocol to assess facial muscle activity in response to experienced and observed tactile stimulation using facial electromyography.

"Affective" touch is believed to be processed in a manner distinct from discriminatory touch and to involve activation of C-tactile (CT) afferent fibers. ...