Facial comparison behaviour of forensic facial examiners

Facial examiners make visual comparisons of face images to establish the identities of persons in police investigations. This study utilised eye-tracking and an individual differences approach to investigate whether these experts exhibit specialist viewing behaviours during identification, by comparing facial examiners with forensic fingerprint analysts and untrained novices across three tasks. These comprised of face matching under unlimited (Experiment 1) and time-restricted viewing (Experiment 2), and with a feature-comparison protocol derived from examiner casework procedures (Experiment 3). Facial examiners exhibited individual differences in facial comparison accuracy and did not consistently outperform fingerprint analysts and novices. Their behaviour was also marked by similarities to the comparison groups in terms of how faces were viewed, as evidenced from eye movements, and how faces were perceived, based on the made feature judgements and identification decisions. These findings further understanding of how facial comparisons are performed and clarify the nature of examiner expertise.     

Validating self-reported compliance with COVID-19 regulations: Demonstrating group-level sociodemographic self-reported compliance that mirrors actual morbidity rates

Using a novel approach, in this work, we establish an association between self-reported compliance with COVID-19 preventive behaviors and fear of the virus with morbidity rates (i.e., actual tests and their outcome). In two nationally representative samples that were collected in Israel during the first (April 2020: N = 507) and second (August 2020: N = 515) waves of the COVID-19 pandemic, participants responded to items assessing their compliance with the COVID-19 preventive behaviors and their fear of contracting the virus. Participants' compliance and fear self-reports served as a proxy for morbidity rates. Specifically, we assessed the association between sociodemographic variables (gender, age, or belonging to a minority group), self-reports, and morbidity rates (as reported in publicly open databases of the Israeli health ministry). We found that self-reports of compliance and fear were mirrored and aligned with actual morbidity rates across sociodemographic variables and studies. By establishing a clear connection between specific behavior (i.e., compliance with covid regulations) and emotion (i.e., fear of getting infected by the virus), self-reports and sociodemographic variables represent a real related phenomena (i.e., covid 19 morbidity rates), our findings overall validate numerous studies that used self-reports to assess compliance with COVID-19 preventive behaviors.     

AN INVESTIGATION OF VELOCITY SYNTHESIS

C ohen , R. L. An investigation of velocity synthesis. Scand. J. Psychol ., 1962, 3 , 97–111.—A short series of experiments has shown that it is possible to divide up the distribution of scores obtained from a group of subjects performing on the velocity synthesis apparatus mainly on the basis of (1) instructions and (2) eye behaviour. It was further found that the difference in scores dependent on differences in eye behaviour could be traced to the effect of the Aubert-Fleischl Paradox. An alternative to the gestalt model was suggested, viz. a signal/interference model.