Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

are intended to represent, regardless of the composite

production system and regardless of how the similar-

ity of the composite to the intended face is assessed.

Although facial composites can be a helpful tool

for law enforcement, they can potentially be problem-

atic. This is because a composite that does not truly

represent the perpetrator of a crime can lead the police

to investigate innocent suspects who do resemble the

composite. Additionally, creating a composite and

viewing it can bias an eyewitness’s memory away

from the original face toward the composite face.

Recent research has shown the advantages of morph-

ing (averaging at the pixel level) composites of the

same target face that have been created by different

people. But, at best, morphing of composites can only

be used in multiple-witness cases, and although a

morphed composite does tend to resemble the target

face more than do individual composites, there is only

a modest increase in similarity.

The main reason why composites do not tend to

resemble the faces that they are designed to depict

appears to stem from the difference between the way

in which people naturally encode faces and the way

in which creating a composite forces them to retrieve

information about the face. People tend to encode

faces through a holistic process, which enables them

to be better at facial recognition than facial recall.

Composite-production forces people to recall faces at

a feature level, as they attempt to piece together a

face while looking at many different variations of the

same feature.

Newer, whole-face production systems that are still

in very early, experimental phases attempt to correct

for this disconnect between the encoding and retriev-

ing phases in composite production. These systems

start by generating a random set of faces; the user

selects the face that best matches the user’s memory

of the intended face. From that, a number of different

algorithms are used that produce a set of faces that are

variations of the initially selected face. The user again

selects the face from this set that most closely resem-

bles the intended face, and this process is repeated

until the faces all resemble that target face equally

well. Although the few comparisons to date of the

whole-face systems with feature-level composite sys-

tems do not show the whole-face systems to be supe-

rior, they do present the composite creator with a

retrieval task that is more similar to the encoding task

than do the other systems. Consequently, these new

systems may eventually prove to be a better tool for

eyewitnesses to create a likeness of the perpetrator for

the police and the public.

Lisa E. Hasel

See alsoConfidence in Identifications; Eyewitness

Descriptions, Accuracy of; Eyewitness Memory;

Identification Tests, Best Practices in; Wrongful

Conviction

Further Readings

Davies, G. M., & Valentine, T. (2007). Facial composites:

Forensic utility and psychological research. In

R. C. L. Lindsay, D. F. Ross, J. D. Read, & M. P. Toglia

(Eds.),Handbook of eyewitness psychology: Vol. 2. Memory

for people (pp. 59–86). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Frowd, C. D., Carson, D., Ness, H., Richardson, J., Morrison,

L., & McLanaghan, S. (2005). A forensically valid

comparison of facial composite systems. Psychology,

Crime, & Law, 11,33–52.

Hasel, L. H., & Wells, G. L. (2006). Catching the bad guy:

Morphing composite faces helps. Law and Human

Behavior[Electronic version].Retrieved November 15,

2006, from http://www.springerlink.com

FALSECONFESSIONS

A false confession is a narrative admission to a crime

that is made, orally or in writing, by an innocent per-

son. Research shows that innocent people may confess

in different ways and for different reasons—resulting

in three types of false confessions: voluntary, compli-

ant, and internalized. From an empirical perspective,

this entry addresses the evolution of our understanding

of false confessions, the frequency of their occurrence,

and the methods of interrogation that put innocent

people at risk.

False confessions are an important problem in

forensic psychology, especially when viewed in the

context of their consequences within the criminal jus-

tice system. Historically, confession evidence is con-

sidered the most incriminating form of evidence that

can be presented at trial, a belief that is supported by

its effects on jury decision making. Even when dis-

puted, uncorroborated, and contradicted by other evi-

dence, confessions are a driving force for conviction.

Among the many notable examples of this phenom-

enon was the infamous 1989 Central Park Jogger case,

306 ———False Confessions

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