Matching identities of familiar and unfamiliar faces caught on CCTV images

People can be inaccurate at matching unfamiliar faces shown in high-quality video images, even when viewpoint and facial expressions are closely match ed. However, identification of highly familiar faces appears good, even whe n video quality is poor. Experiment 1 reported a direct comparison between familiar and unfamiliar faces. Participants who were personally familiar wi th target items appearing on video were highly accurate at a verification t ask. Unfamiliar participants doing the same task performed very inaccuratel y. Familiarity affected discriminability, but not bias. Experiments 2 and 3 showed that brief periods of familiarization have little beneficial effect unless "deep" or "social" processing is encouraged. The results show that video evidence can be used effectively as a probe to identity when the face s shown are highly familiar to observers, but caution should be used where images of unfamiliar people are being compared.