Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

changes in appearance make accurate recognition sig-

nificantly more difficult. This decrease in recognition

can be dramatic depending on the degree of change.

The greater the change, the greater the decrease in

accuracy for witnesses, both adults and children, trying

to make an identification. The hair, hairline, and upper

portion of the face, if obscured, are particularly ineffec-

tive for later accurate identification. Both the simulta-

neous and sequential lineup procedures have been

tested in laboratory settings to determine their efficacy

when a culprit’s appearance has changed (e.g., hair-

style, facial hair). For child and adult witnesses, both

lineup procedures produced comparable and lowered

accurate identification rates when an appearance

change occurred compared with the case when there

was no change.

Remembering Faces

How do we remember a face? Do we remember the

features of a face or do we remember the whole face

as a gestalt? Some debate has occurred over this issue,

with a number of questions remaining unanswered. It

may be that both types of encoding occur or that one

strategy is more relied on depending on the develop-

mental stage of the observer. For example, it has been

suggested that adolescents and adults are more likely

to use a gestalt or holistic approach to remembering

faces, taking the whole face in, whereas younger

children may be more likely to rely on a featural strat-

egy, focusing on individual features.

Change of Appearance:

Facial Characteristics

Regardless of the process that we use to remember a

face, it becomes much more difficult to do this when

facial characteristics change. Moreover, a change in

one feature may make the whole face appear different.

Consider the case when someone changes hairstyles

or hair color or if a male shaves off his beard or grows

facial hair. Changes in any of these features make it

more difficult to correctly recognize that person.

The influence of three facial changes on recogni-

tion/identification accuracy has been examined across

a number of studies: changes in hairstyle, facial hair,

and the addition or removal of glasses. To study

the influence of these changes, often participants

are presented with several photographs featuring dif-

ferent “targets.” Following some delay, participants

are presented with another set of photographs, some

of which are never-before-seen faces, some are of the

targets as they appeared in the initial set of pho-

tographs, and others are of the targets but with some

changes in appearance—for example, the target may

not be wearing glasses in the first set of photos but

could be wearing glasses in the new set. When an

alteration or change is made, there is a significant

decrease in accurate identification. Moreover, when

changes to facial features are combined, the difficulty

with identification can increase. Most often, changes

to facial features results in an inability to correctly

recognize the person seen previously.

The natural aging process can also make accurate

identification more difficult. For example, a 2-year

difference in time can reduce recognizability, in par-

ticular if there is a large discrepancy between the two

appearances, such as when facial hair is grown. In one

study examining the aging process, participants ini-

tially viewed photographs of high school students

whom they would later have to recognize in a set of

photos taken 2 years later. Participants had difficulty

in correctly recognizing photos if there was a large

discrepancy between the high school photo and the

photo taken of the same person 2 years later.

Disguise

Culprits may attempt to evade identification by wearing

a variety of disguises that conceal either part or most of

their face during the commission of the crime. They

have been known to wear ski masks revealing just the

eyes and mouth, hats and sunglasses, stockings over

their head, and other sorts of masks. Studies that have

examined the influence of disguise often have partici-

pants watch a videotaped mock crime in which half the

participants see the culprit wearing a disguise, such as

a knit cap that obscures the hair and hairline. The

remaining participants see the culprit without the dis-

guise. Research indicates that participants are almost

twice as likely to provide an accurate identification of

the culprit when there is no disguise than when a dis-

guise is donned. Moreover, the facial composites pro-

duced by participants who see a culprit with a cap show

much greater variability than composites from those

participants who saw a culprit without a cap.

Researchers have attempted to determine which

features are more essential for later recognition/

identification. The upper portions of the face, includ-

ing the hair, hairline, and eyes, seem more critical for

later accurate recognition than the lower portions.

Hair in particular is a feature that many people focus

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