Photo-ID is widely used in security settings, despite research showing that viewers find it very difficult to match unfamiliar faces. Here we test participants with specialist experience and training ...in the task: passport-issuing officers. First, we ask officers to compare photos to live ID-card bearers, and observe high error rates, including 14% false acceptance of 'fraudulent' photos. Second, we compare passport officers with a set of student participants, and find equally poor levels of accuracy in both groups. Finally, we observe that passport officers show no performance advantage over the general population on a standardised face-matching task. Across all tasks, we observe very large individual differences: while average performance of passport staff was poor, some officers performed very accurately--though this was not related to length of experience or training. We propose that improvements in security could be made by emphasising personnel selection.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Despite many years of research, there has been surprisingly little progress in our understanding of how faces are identified. Here I argue that there are two contributory factors: (a) Our methods ...have obscured a critical aspect of the problem, within-person variability; and (b) research has tended to conflate familiar and unfamiliar face processing. Examples of procedures for studying variability are given, and a case is made for studying real faces, of the type people recognize every day. I argue that face recognition (specifically identification) may only be understood by adopting new techniques that acknowledge statistical patterns in the visual environment. As a consequence, some of our current methods will need to be abandoned.
Cellular senescence, a permanent state of cell cycle arrest accompanied by a complex phenotype, is an essential mechanism that limits tumorigenesis and tissue damage. In physiological conditions, ...senescent cells can be removed by the immune system, facilitating tumor suppression and wound healing. However, as we age, senescent cells accumulate in tissues, either because an aging immune system fails to remove them, the rate of senescent cell formation is elevated, or both. If senescent cells persist in tissues, they have the potential to paradoxically promote pathological conditions. Cellular senescence is associated with an enhanced pro-survival phenotype, which most likely promotes persistence of senescent cells in vivo. This phenotype may have evolved to favor facilitation of a short-term wound healing, followed by the elimination of senescent cells by the immune system. In this review, we provide a perspective on the triggers, mechanisms and physiological as well as pathological consequences of senescent cells.
Stable face representations Jenkins, Rob; Burton, A. Mike
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological sciences,
06/2011, Letnik:
366, Številka:
1571
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Photographs are often used to establish the identity of an individual or to verify that they are who they claim to be. Yet, recent research shows that it is surprisingly difficult to match a photo to ...a face. Neither humans nor machines can perform this task reliably. Although human perceivers are good at matching familiar faces, performance with unfamiliar faces is strikingly poor. The situation is no better for automatic face recognition systems. In practical settings, automatic systems have been consistently disappointing. In this review, we suggest that failure to distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar face processing has led to unrealistic expectations about face identification in applied settings. We also argue that a photograph is not necessarily a reliable indicator of facial appearance, and develop our proposal that summary statistics can provide more stable face representations. In particular, we show that image averaging stabilizes facial appearance by diluting aspects of the image that vary between snapshots of the same person. We review evidence that the resulting images can outperform photographs in both behavioural experiments and computer simulations, and outline promising directions for future research.
Face recognition is used to prove identity across a wide variety of settings. Despite this, research consistently shows that people are typically rather poor at matching faces to photos. Some ...professional groups, such as police and passport officers, have been shown to perform just as poorly as the general public on standard tests of face recognition. However, face recognition skills are subject to wide individual variation, with some people showing exceptional ability-a group that has come to be known as 'super-recognisers'. The Metropolitan Police Force (London) recruits 'super-recognisers' from within its ranks, for deployment on various identification tasks. Here we test four working super-recognisers from within this police force, and ask whether they are really able to perform at levels above control groups. We consistently find that the police 'super-recognisers' perform at well above normal levels on tests of unfamiliar and familiar face matching, with degraded as well as high quality images. Recruiting employees with high levels of skill in these areas, and allocating them to relevant tasks, is an efficient way to overcome some of the known difficulties associated with unfamiliar face recognition.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The Glasgow Face Matching Test Burton, A. Mike; White, David; McNeill, Allan
Behavior research methods,
02/2010, Letnik:
42, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
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We describe a new test for unfamiliar face matching, the Glasgow Face Matching Test (GFMT). Viewers are shown pairs of faces, photographed in full-face view but with different cameras, and are asked ...to make same/different judgments. The full version of the test comprises 168 face pairs, and we also describe a shortened version with 40 pairs. We provide normative data for these tests derived from large subject samples. We also describe associations between the GFMT and other tests of matching and memory. The new test correlates moderately with face memory but more strongly with object matching, a result that is consistent with previous research highlighting a link between object and face matching, specific to unfamiliar faces. The test is available free for scientific use.
Are We Face Experts? Young, Andrew W.; Burton, A. Mike
Trends in cognitive sciences,
February 2018, 2018-02-00, 20180201, Letnik:
22, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
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According to a widely used theoretical perspective, our everyday experiences lead us to become natural experts at perceiving and recognising human faces. However, there has been considerable debate ...about this view. We discuss criteria for expertise and show how the debate over face expertise has often missed key points concerning the role and nature of face familiarity. For identity recognition, most of us show only limited expertise with unfamiliar faces. Carefully evaluating the senses in which it is appropriate or inappropriate to assert that we are face experts leads to the conclusion that we are, in effect, familiar face experts.
There is a wide range of ability to recognise the identities of unfamiliar faces in the population.
This variability is influenced by genes but does not seem to be amenable to training. Even having a job that requires matching unfamiliar faces does not lead to much improvement.
Images of faces seen in everyday life are highly variable, and much of the problem many of us experience with unfamiliar face identity comes from not being able to determine whether the variability is image-related or identity-related.
Although failures of familiar face recognition do sometimes occur, our ability to recognise familiar faces is mostly excellent, is able to cope with degraded images, and is largely unaffected by image-related differences.
Familiar face recognition meets broad criteria for expertise, but recognition of unfamiliar faces is expert only in the restricted sense that it is influenced by experience.
The various phases of tin sulfide have been studied as semiconductors since the 1960s and are now being investigated as potential earth-abundant photovoltaic and photocatalytic materials. Of ...particular note is the recent isolation of zincblende SnS in particles and thin-films. Herein, first-principles calculations are employed to better understand this novel geometry and its place within the tin sulfide multiphasic system. We report the enthalpies of formation for the known phases of SnS, SnS2, and Sn2S3, with good agreement between theory and experiment for the ground-state structures of each. While theoretical X-ray diffraction patterns do agree with the assignment of the zincblende phase demonstrated in the literature, the structure is not stable close to the lattice parameters observed experimentally, exhibiting an unfeasibly large pressure and a formation enthalpy much higher than any other phase. Ab initio molecular dynamics simulations reveal spontaneous degradation to an amorphous phase much lower in energy, as Sn(II) is inherently unstable in a regular tetrahedral environment. We conclude that the known rocksalt phase of SnS has been mis-assigned as zincblende in the recent literature.
Variability in photos of the same face Jenkins, Rob; White, David; Van Montfort, Xandra ...
Cognition,
12/2011, Letnik:
121, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
► The same person can look very different in different photographs. ► Photos of the same person often look more different than photos of different people. ► This is true for judgements involving ...identity and judgements of attractiveness. ► No currently theories can account for within-person variability on this scale. ► Our findings suggest that photographs are not suitable as proof of identity.
Psychological studies of face recognition have typically ignored within-person variation in appearance, instead emphasising differences
between individuals. Studies typically assume that a photograph adequately captures a person’s appearance, and for that reason most studies use just one, or a small number of photos per person. Here we show that photographs are not consistent indicators of facial appearance because they are blind to within-person variability. Crucially, this within-person variability is often very large compared to the differences between people. To investigate variability in photos of the same face, we collected images from the internet to sample a realistic range for each individual. In Experiments 1 and 2, unfamiliar viewers perceived images of the same person as being different individuals, while familiar viewers perfectly identified the same photos. In Experiment 3, multiple photographs of any individual formed a continuum of good to bad likeness, which was highly sensitive to familiarity. Finally, in Experiment 4, we found that within-person variability exceeded between-person variability in attractiveness. These observations are critical to our understanding of face processing, because they suggest that a key component of face processing has been ignored. As well as its theoretical significance, this scale of variability has important practical implications. For example, our findings suggest that face photographs are unsuitable as proof of identity.
Protected areas (PAs) have long been criticized as creations of and for an elite few, where associated costs, but few benefits, are borne by marginalized rural communities. Contrary to predictions of ...this argument, we found that average human population growth rates on the borders of 306 PAs in 45 countries in Africa and Latin America were nearly double average rural growth, suggesting that PAs attract, rather than repel, human settlement. Higher population growth on PA edges is evident across ecoregions, countries, and continents and is correlated positively with international donor investment in national conservation programs and an index of park-related funding. These findings provide insight on the value of PAs for local people, but also highlight a looming threat to PA effectiveness and biodiversity conservation.
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