Synthesized views can improve face recognition

It is well known that a new face studied from one view is often difficult to identify from another. This viewpoint dependence has detrimental implications for forensic practice. To compensate for this problem, we employed synthesized face images in the training session of a standard old/new recognition task. Observers in the experimental conditions learned one or more synthesized face images along with an original photograph of the face in a different view, whereas observers in the control conditions learned only the original photograph of the face. It was found that the experimental conditions consistently produced better recognition accuracy than the control conditions. We conclude that synthesized face views can be used to facilitate person identification in forensic applications. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.