The Relative Utility of Verbal Descriptions and Facial Composites in Facial Identifications

Research on early facial composite systems has often demonstrated their poor capability to produce a good likeness of a target face. Photofit composites have been shown to produce poorer identification than simply furnishing a description of a target face. The current study revisits this comparison with composites produced using a holistic based composite system, EFIT-V. The effectiveness of verbal descriptions of faces was compared with facial composites in two laboratory tasks. Prior to the empirical work, eight ‘witnesses’ viewed an unfamiliar face and then provided a verbal description and created a facial composite. In Experiment 1 participants evaluated the relationship between a target face and three combinations of witness information (description alone, composite alone and description and composite combined). Providing a description was rated as more useful than providing a composite. In addition, presenting both a composite and description together was rated as less useful than presenting a description on its own. In Experiment 2 participants were supplied with the same types of information while they attempted to choose the target from an array of faces. Better performance was achieved from a description than from a composite or a description and composite combined. Analysis of participants’ confidence in their decisions showed it was higher when prompted by descriptions, irrespective of whether the decisions were correct or not. The implications of these findings for the utility of facial composites are discussed.