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• 60 minutes eyewitness segment (13 min)

 The Forensic Artist
· A forensic artist is called in when a sketch of a person is
needed to notify the public that he/she is missing, identify a
suspect, or eliminate a suspect.

· Usually, the forensic artist goes about his/her job by carefully

listening to an eyewitness or victim’s description of the missing
person, then accurately translating his/her depiction into a
composite drawing.

Picture: www.ppdonline.org/ ppd_reports.htm

· This sketch is then put on flyers, and given to the police,

television news stations, etc. in order to help with the search.
Forensic Artist Levels of qualifications

• 120 hours of education: 80 hours of composite art

from an approved school and 40 hours in related
courses
• A minimum of five years with a bona fide law
enforcement agency

• Five successful composite drawings (hits),

including written description of case specifics and
how the drawings were completed

• Three letters of recommendation, one from a

supervisor certifying the submitted drawing
samples

• A written, practical, and verbal exam including an

"on the spot" composite sketch based on a pre-
selected photographed "suspect"
In the United States, forensic artists
are also trained in
•human anatomy
•odontology (study of teeth)
•Age progression
•Psychology
•3D imagery.

Their talents are called upon for

courtroom sketches, "wanted" posters,
drafting crime scenes, medical
drawings for autopsies, and facial
reconstruction from skulls.
 Importance of faces:
• Central role in human interactions

• Contribute to speech perception (McGurk effect)

• Communicate a wealth of social information:

– Age, gender, personal identity (physical structure)

– Mood and emotional state (facial expression)

– Interest / attentional focus (direction of gaze)

 Faces as visual stimuli:
• Faces as a category highly homogenous (similar)
– Share basic component parts in a fixed configuration

(2 eyes over a nose over a mouth inside an ellipse)

• Individual faces highly different

– Vary in many dimensions, including head shape, individual features,
relative feature placement, color, texture, etc.

• Dynamic and changeable due to movable parts that change shape

and relative position
– Example: a smile vs. an angry frown – the same face?
A single face can produce radically different images on our retina when it changes
expression and/or orientation (Farah, 2000).
 Demands of face recognition:
• Generally same as for object recognition
– Recognition in context (object in a clutter of other objects in the scene)

– Object invariance (across different viewpoints, sizes / distances, &

illuminations; in motion, etc.)
– Specificity (matching visual object to specific semantic description)

• But -- faces require higher specificity! (exemplar vs. category level)

– In most situations, we need to recognize a specific individual face (e.g.,
as Joe Smith) rather than the general category (“face”)
 Forensic Artist and Missing Children
· If a child is missing for a long period of time, or an
unidentified skeleton of a missing child is found, the
forensic artist is called upon to help make a sketch of the
missing child.

· In cases like these, when the forensic artist needs to

work from an old photograph or a skull, a facial
Picture: www.headsketch.com reconstruction artist is called to help.

· The facial reconstruction artist uses either a 2D or 3D

technique to construct the face of a missing child from a
skeleton, or an old photo.

Picture:
www.epm.ornl.gov/viz/apps/f-
skull.jpg
 2-Dimensional Facial Reconstruction
Procedures:
· The unidentified skull is placed on a stand, in the
Frankfort Horizontal position.
· Tissue markers are placed on the skull.
· A ruler is placed beside the skull.
· Photos are taken of the skull’s frontal and profile
views.
· The photos are taped side by side, in the Frankfort
Horizontal position, on two separate flat wooden
boards.
· Transparent natural vellum sheets are taped down on
top of the photographs.
· Following the skull’s natural contours, and using
tissue markers as guidelines, the forensic artist
creates a sketch of the unidentified person.
re: www.crimelibrary.com/forensics/art/images/Two-dimensional-facial-reco.jpg
· Approximate measurements for the mouth, nose, and
eyes are made.
· Hair type, and style are determined by other evidence
collected from the crime scene that give clues as to
the kind of life the unidentified person led.
 Age Progression
If a child is missing for an extensive period
of time, and only outdated pictures are
available; a forensic artist may use age
progression to help in the identification
process.

Picture: www.missingkids.com/assets/images/age.jpg Procedure:

- An outdated picture or sketch of child is period of
time is obtained.

- Information is gathered on the suspect or victim,

such as: lifestyle, genetics (for weight considerations)
and occupations, etc.

- The artist produces an educated estimation on

Picture: www.cnnw.net/~nmclc/Pca24.JPG

how the individual should look.

 Computer Generated Age Progression

· If computer software is used, the artist can use

image enhance to add features such as
eyeglasses, mustaches, beards, hats, different hair
styles, and numerous other items on the photo.

· Computer programs such as Photoshop are used

Picture: www.chilhavisto.rai.it/CLV/img/ C/Celentano/grandi/AGING.JPG
to paint directly on a digitized photograph of the
victim.

Picture: www.ncsd.com/MissingChildren/mort-today.JPG
 Facial Composites
Investigators work with sketch artists and eyewitnesses to create
facial composites, or sketches of a person’s face. Today many
police departments are using facial reconstruction software to
help them with this task.

The composite may be used internally to assist officers in

identifying the suspect or used externally through local media
(radio, TV, and newspaper) to solicit leads from citizens.

FACES – A software program that

offers many options to help you
recreate a person’s facial features.
You will have a chance to try to create a facial composite. You
will need to pay close attention to the following features:
The shape of the face
The shape of the jaw
The shape of the eyes
The shape of the nose
The width of the neck
The shape & protrusion of the ears
The presence of facial piercing
The presence of facial hair, its color, & location
The presence of facial markings, such as scars or tattoos
Forehead or other facial lines
The presence of eyeglasses or sunglasses
The length, color, & texture of the person’s hair
Find the human face in the display as fast as you can. Ready?
Now find the animal face. Ready?
 Forensic Artist
• Let’s give it a try….
Study this photo for 30 seconds
Pop-out effect for faces! (Herschler & Hochstein, 2005)
 demonstrates our expertise in face processing
 Perceptual expertise:
• Humans are experts at face processing (Diamond & Carey, 1986)

• Effects of accumulated lifelong experience & daily practice

– Face representations always at least partially activated?

• Biological predisposition?
– Newborn infants will detect and track a human face more readily than
another visual object (Johnson & Morton, 1991)
 Prosopagnosia:
• Impairment in face recognition (“face blindness”)
– Cannot recognize familiar faces or own face in the mirror

– Can recognize faces as a category vs. other objects

– Can recognize familiar people by voice and other non-facial clues

– Vision otherwise OK

• Due to brain injury (typically to the right temporal lobe)

• Socially crippling
What is it like to be face blind?

“People who are ‘tone deaf’ are not deaf to

tones. They can hear tones, they just can't tell them
apart. People who are ‘color blind’ can see things that
are in color. They just can't tell colors apart. Similarly, I
can see faces. I just can't tell them apart.”

“If you are face blind, in social settings, or even

when watching TV, people will have come and gone long
before you can identify them. So you never do. By the
time eight seconds have passed, people in your
presence who don’t know of your face blindness will be
offended at your failure to recognize them. And long
before you even get your eight seconds, you know you will
be criticized for ‘staring’…”
-- Bill Choisser, Face Blind!
www.choisser.com/faceblind/
 The Capgras delusion:
• A form of delusional misidentification due to brain injury
• Patients claim that their relatives have been replaced by identical-looking
impostors, clones, robots, Martians, etc. (Capgras & Reboul-Lachaux, 1923)
• Recognize relatives visually but have a deeper, overwhelming sense that they
are unfamiliar, strange, not who they claim to be, etc.
• Carries a serious risk of violence
• Loss of appropriate emotional response to visual stimuli?
– Emotional recognition is faster than perceptual recognition!
 Theories of face recognition:

1) Specialized face module

– Functionally and anatomically separate

– Processes faces only

2) Faces processed by the general visual system (no

specialized face module)
 Specialized face-module hypothesis:
• Fusiform Face Area (FFA)?
– Right inferior temporal cortex

– Along the ventral / occipitotemporal “what” pathway

• Case studies of prosopagnosia – damage typically to FFA

• Single-cell recordings in monkeys: face cells? (Baylis et al., 1985)

• fMRI studies of humans: FFA selectively activated by faces

(Kanwisher et al., 1997)
 But –

• Evidence that prosopagnosia not limited to faces

• FFA varies in size and location between individuals

• FFA also activated for non-face objects (e.g. in dog experts)

 Alternative hypothesis:
• FFA = Flexible Fusiform Area? (Tarr & Gauthier, 2000)
– FFA as a system specialized for fine discriminations / subordinate
categorization
– Processes all complex homogenous objects (not just faces)

– Activation of FFA increases with expertise

 Did you know?
According to The Innocence Project (2008)
"Eyewitness misidentification is the single greatest
cause of wrongful convictions nationwide, playing a
role in more than 75% of convictions overturned
through DNA testing." Still, the criminal justice
system profoundly relies on eyewitness identification
and testimony for investigating and prosecuting
crimes (Wells & Olson, 2003).

What factors affect a person’s memory

and their ability to identify a suspect?

Source: http://www.helium.com/items/1276135-accurate-eyewitness-accounts
 Witness Factors
• Age may play a role in the accuracy of an eyewitness’ statement or
identification of a suspect. Studies have shown that when a lineup
contains the actual culprit, both young children and elderly perform well,
but when the lineup does not contain the culprit there is a higher rate of
mistaken identifications.
• The race of the witness may also play a role. The Cross Race Effect
(CRE) is a phenomenon in which people are better at recognizing faces
of their own race rather than those of other races.
• The use of drugs can alter a person’s ability to recall the events of a
crime even after they are no longer under the influence.
• A person’s memory of an event can be influenced by other witnesses,
investigators, and/or the media. Investigators use open-ended questioning
and follow procedures for conducting line-ups to limit their influence on
a witness’ memory of an event or identification of a suspect.

Source: http://www.helium.com/items/1276135-accurate-eyewitness-accounts
 Crime Scene & Suspect Factors
• A crime that is extremely traumatic for an eyewitness may affect his/her
recall of the event. For example, a witness confronted with a weapon
tends to focus on the weapon rather than the perpetrator’s face.
• Someone who is able to focus on a perpetrator's face for a minute or
longer will tend to have a more accurate memory than someone who saw
the person for only a few seconds.
• Studies have shown that faces that are either highly attractive, highly
unattractive, or distinctive are more likely to be accurately recognized.
Simple disguises, such as hats or sunglasses, can interfere with accurate
eyewitness identification. However, body piercings and tattoos increases
the likelihood of an accurate identification.
• The time of day in which the crime occurred as well as a person’s view
of the scene may affect what a he/she is able to see. In addition, a person
who is familiar with the area in which the crime took place, may have a
better recall of the positions of the victims or suspects.

Source: http://www.helium.com/items/1276135-accurate-eyewitness-accounts
 Go to:
• http://
www.innocenceprojec
t.org/news/Video-Cen
ter.php

• misidentification
Introduction to Biometrics