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Face matching in a long task: enforced rest and desk-switching cannot maintain identification accuracy
Hamood M Alenezi1, Markus Bindemann2, Matthew C Fysh2
1School of Psychology, University of Kent , UK ; Department of Education and Psychology, Northern Borders University , KSA.
Peerj
|August 28, 2015
Summary
Accuracy in face matching tasks declines with prolonged testing. Neither rest breaks nor room-switching could improve performance, suggesting challenges in applied settings like passport control.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Human Factors
Background:
- Face matching is a critical but difficult task.
- Accuracy in face matching decreases with extended durations.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate methods for mitigating accuracy decline in long face-matching tasks.
- To test the efficacy of rest breaks and room-switching.
Main Methods:
- Two experiments were conducted involving prolonged face-matching tasks.
- Experiment 1 incorporated regular rest breaks.
- Experiment 2 involved switching rooms between testing sessions.
Main Results:
- Both experiments confirmed a significant decline in face-matching accuracy over time.
- Neither rest breaks nor room-switching effectively eliminated this accuracy decline.
- The difficulty of the face-matching task remained substantial.
Conclusions:
- Standard interventions like rest breaks and room-switching are insufficient to counteract performance degradation in long face-matching tasks.
- Person identification in applied settings, such as border control, may be inherently error-prone due to task duration and repetition.
- Addressing accuracy decline in applied face identification requires further research into more effective countermeasures.
