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Published on: June 20, 2020
Face recognition and description abilities in people with mild intellectual disabilities
Julie Gawrylowicz1, Fiona Gabbert, Derek Carson
1Royal Holloway, University of London, London, UK. Julie.Gawrylowicz@rhul.ac.uk
Summary
Individuals with mild intellectual disabilities (mID) show lower performance in facial recognition and description tasks compared to the general population. Findings suggest adaptations may be needed for police procedures involving eyewitnesses with mID.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Forensic Psychology
- Disability Studies
Background:
- Individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) encounter situations requiring facial identification of perpetrators.
- Cognitive and memory limitations in people with ID may impede standard police identification procedures.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine face recognition and description abilities in individuals with mild intellectual disabilities (mID).
- To compare the performance of individuals with mID to that of individuals without ID in forensic identification tasks.
Main Methods:
- Experiment 1: Three old/new face recognition tasks.
- Experiment 2: Verbal face description from memory and with the target present.
Main Results:
- Participants with mID demonstrated significantly poorer performance on both recognition and recall tasks compared to controls.
- Despite lower scores, group performance for individuals with mID remained above chance.
- Performance variability was observed among individuals with mID based on specific measures used.
Conclusions:
- The study highlights challenges for individuals with mID in standard police identification procedures.
- Findings underscore the need for potential modifications in forensic settings to accommodate individuals with mID.
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