Closed-circuit television: How effective an identification aid?

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Abstract
Two experiments simulated identification of suspects from CCTV recordings: Expt 1 simulated identification from whole body shots while Expt 2 showed close-up pictures of targets' faces. The results are consistent with those of Bruce el al. (1999) and Kemp, Towell, and Pike (1997) in showing surprisingly high rates of error in person identification from CCTV material. In Expt 1, participants (N = 80) searched for a suspicious incident in a 25-minute surveillance film which was shown either in colour or monochrome. They then attempted to describe and identify the persons involved. Accuracy of identification was just 15% from memory with a 60% false alarm rate. When judgments were made with access to a still frame image of the target, accuracy rose to 30%, with a 65% false alarm rate. Colour did not improve identification, but did prompt more description of the targets' clothing. In Expt 2, participants (N = 80) observed video-clips which included close-up pictures, of four targets before identifying each in target present or absent arrays. Identification errors were lower on this occasion, averaging 21% when judgements were made from memory and 13% with continuous reference to the recording. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

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