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Super Recognisers International

I’m here just testing to see whether I can edit and add to this post.

Supers are the cover story in this month’s Reader’s Digest Australia

http://www.readersdigest.com.au/magazine/The-Rise-of-the-Super-Recognisers.asp

 

Recent articles about supers, prosopagnosia, policing and face recognition research

Keefe, Patrick Radden The detectives who never forget a face. New Yorker. August 22nd 2016. Print edition title: Total Recall.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/08/22/londons-super-recognizer-police-force

I was glad to read in this substantial and interesting article that face identification was not the only evidence used to convict criminals. And the last couple of sentences in this piece are too true!

 

Montagne, Renee ‘New Yorker’: The Detectives Who Never Forget A Face. NPR. August 17th 2016.

http://www.npr.org/2016/08/17/490314062/new-yorker-the-detectives-who-never-forget-a-face

 

See No Evil

The See No Evil TV series episiode 3 about the murder of Kelsey Smith, which was broadcast on the Sunday just past on the Nine TV network in Australia was an illustrative example of the central and essential importance of crowdsourced face recognition and CCTV surveillance in solving serious crimes. I just wish that law-enforcement authorities wouold do more to use these tools to prevent crimes or to intervene in crimes, rather than waiting for someone to be killed or harmed, then using these tools to solve crimes.

https://www.9now.com.au/see-no-evil

 

 

Another fascinating article about the important talents of supers

Robertson, David James (2016) Could super recognisers be the latest weapon in the war on terror? The Conversation. March 25th 2016.

https://theconversation.com/could-super-recognisers-be-the-latest-weapon-in-the-war-on-terror-56772

And don’t forget to check out the comments, one identifying a super-recognizer character in detective story literature.

 

Not one but four recently published studies of super-recognition!!!!

And all bar one are open access! Please readers let me know if there are more studies on supers out there.

 

Bobak A, Parris B, Gregory N, Bennetts R, Bate S (2016) Eye-Movement Strategies in Developmental Prosopagnosia and “Super” Face Recognition. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. Posted online: 02 Mar 2016. DOI:10.1080/17470218.2016.1161059

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17470218.2016.1161059

The above paper interesting as it apparently supports the idea that developmental prosopagnosia is a heterogeneous condition and at least the most severe cases are not simply the bottom end of a spectrum of ability. The authors do seem to regard supers as the top end of a spectrum though. Researchers also found that supers and able controls spent more time looking at noses, a finding which I think I recall from another study. It makes sense to me as I feel that great face recognition ability is an automatic and involuntary process (like synaesthesia) that involves perception of the face as a whole “landscape”.

 

Bobak AK, Dowsett AJ, Bate S (2016) Solving the Border Control Problem: Evidence of Enhanced Face Matching in Individuals with Extraordinary Face Recognition Skills. PLoS ONE 11(2): e0148148. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0148148

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0148148

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4735453/

 

Bobak AK, Hancock PJB, Bate S. Super-recognisers in Action: Evidence from Face-matching and Face Memory Tasks. Applied Cognitive Psychology. 2016;30:81–91. doi: 10.1002/acp.3170

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/acp.3170/epdf

 

Robertson DJ, Noyes E, Dowsett AJ, Jenkins R, Burton AM (2016) Face Recognition by Metropolitan Police Super-Recognisers. PLoS ONE 11(2): e0150036. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0150036

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0150036

 

Anna Bobak and Dr Sarah Bate have been busy!

 

Radio story from BBC in October 2015 about supers and the Met

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0356fvj

This week’s New Scientist has cover story about super-recognizers

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22830484-800-super-recognisers-could-be-used-to-identify-strangers-in-cctv/

How capable is the National Facial Biometric Matching Capability?

Reporter: Margot O’Neill

It’s been described by the Government as its ‘latest security weapon’, but is the National Facial Biometric Matching Capability open to misuse? Lateline. ABC. September 9th 2015.

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2015/s4309519.htm

It sounds like we are doing everything except using super-recognizers in Australia, which seems different to the approach used by police in the UK. Based on what I’ve read, I’m skeptical about the accuracy of this sort of technology.

The value of CCTV questioned in Queensland

The value of CCTV in preventing crime has been questioned in Queensland following another tragic murder of a young person, which resonates with concerns about CCTV that I’ve aired at this blog in the past. CCTV might be a valuable tool in solving crimes, but everyone would much prefer that crimes be prevented or at least intercepted in a timely manner by police. The full video of this story will probably appear in a day or two at the 7.30 website.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-10/this-week-on-730-queensland/5382066?section=qld