The impact of weapons and unusual objects on the construction of facial composites

The presence of a weapon in the perpetration of a crime can impede an observer’s ability to describe and/or recognise the person responsible. In the current experiment, we explore whether weapons when present at encoding of a target identity interfere with the construction of a facial composite. Par...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Erickson, William Blake (Author) ; Brown, Charity (Author) ; Portch, Emma (Author) ; Lampinen, James Michael (Author) ; Marsh, John E. (Author) ; Fodarella, Cristina (Author) ; Petkovic, Anna (Author) ; Coultas, Carly (Author) ; Newby, Amanda (Author) ; Date, Louisa (Author) ; Hancock, Peter J. B. (Author) ; Frowd, Charlie D. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Published: 2024
In: Psychology, crime & law
Year: 2024, Volume: 30, Issue: 3, Pages: 207–228
Online Access: Volltext (kostenfrei)
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Keywords:
Law Enforcement
EvoFIT
weapon
Facial composite
Description
Summary:The presence of a weapon in the perpetration of a crime can impede an observer’s ability to describe and/or recognise the person responsible. In the current experiment, we explore whether weapons when present at encoding of a target identity interfere with the construction of a facial composite. Participants encoded an unfamiliar target face seen either on its own or paired with a knife. Encoding duration (10 or 30 s) was also manipulated. The following day, participants recalled the face and constructed a composite of it using a holistic system (EvoFIT). Correct naming of the participants’ composites was found to reduce reliably when target faces were paired with the weapon at 10 s but not at 30 s. These data suggest that the presence of a weapon reduces the effectiveness of facial composites following a short encoding duration. Implications for theory and police practice are discussed.
ISSN:1477-2744
DOI:10.1080/1068316X.2022.2079643