Police urged to drop photofits for caricatures
Makes sense.
Police forces should issue comical caricatures of criminals they are
hunting instead of standard photofits, according to a team of scientists who
found that cartoon-like faces are better at jolting people’s
memories.
A study at the University of Central Lancashire found that over-emphasising prominent features on people’s faces made them twice as easy to identify than before.
A study at the University of Central Lancashire found that over-emphasising prominent features on people’s faces made them twice as easy to identify than before.
Some criminals are easier to caricature than others
In tests, volunteers were asked to identify people from the standard photofit of their face and from their caricature. On average, a photofit face was correctly identified 20% of the time, compared with 40% for the caricature, according to a report in this month’s Visual Cognition journal.
Posted: Mon - November 26, 2007 at 08:33 AM