Visual search performance in ‘CCTV’ and mobile phone-like video footage
Open Access
- 24 September 2021
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Springer Science and Business Media LLC in Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications
- Vol. 6 (1), 1-9
- https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-021-00326-w
Abstract
Finding an unfamiliar person in a crowd of others is an integral task for police officers, CCTV-operators, and security staff who may be looking for a suspect or missing person; however, research suggests that it is difficult and accuracy in such tasks is low. In two real-world visual-search experiments, we examined whether being provided with four images versus one image of an unfamiliar target person would help improve accuracy when searching for that person through video footage. In Experiment 1, videos were taken from above and at a distance to simulate CCTV, and images of the target showed their face and torso. In Experiment 2, videos were taken from approximately shoulder height, such as one would expect from body-camera or mobile phone recordings, and target images included only the face. Our findings suggest that having four images as exemplars leads to higher accuracy in the visual search tasks, but this only reached significance in Experiment 2. There also appears to be a conservative bias whereby participants are more likely to respond that the target is not in the video when presented with only one image as opposed to 4. These results point to there being an advantage for providing multiple images of targets for use in video visual-search.Keywords
Funding Information
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/N007743/1)
This publication has 32 references indexed in Scilit:
- Passport Officers’ Errors in Face MatchingPLOS ONE, 2014
- Summary for PolicymakersPublished by Cambridge University Press (CUP) ,2014
- Familiar and Unfamiliar Face Recognition in a CrowdPsychology, 2014
- Crowd Effects in Unfamiliar Face MatchingApplied Cognitive Psychology, 2013
- Matching Face Images Taken on the Same Day or Months Apart: the Limitations of Photo IDApplied Cognitive Psychology, 2013
- Variability in photos of the same faceCognition, 2011
- The neural processing of familiar and unfamiliar faces: A review and synopsisBritish Journal of Psychology, 2011
- CCTV on trial: Matching video images with the defendant in the dockApplied Cognitive Psychology, 2008
- Recognition of unfamiliar facesTrends in Cognitive Sciences, 2000
- Face Recognition in Poor-Quality Video: Evidence From Security SurveillancePsychological Science, 1999