Transcript

GRAHAM PIKE

Welcome to week 5.

This week we are shifting direction and looking at the difficulties of describing a face. Psychology face recognition is my own area of research, which I've now been working on for more than 20 years.

Describing someone's face may sound easy, but most of us will find it difficult. Our two witnesses provided descriptions of the perpetrator's clothing, build, age and ethnicity, but they did not mention much about their faces. Clothing can be changed and stature, age and ethnicity are too generic to be used to identify a suspect. So how do the police obtain a useful description of a perpetrator's face?

We'll be looking at why it's so hard to describe a face in any detail, and explore the psychology of face recognition; what are our brains capable of doing, and what might disrupt our ability to recognise a face.

We'll also learn about the computer systems used by the police to construct a visual image of a suspect's face and how technological developments have been designed to make the most of psychological knowledge about human memory and face recognition. You'll then have an opportunity to try and recreate a face yourself using The Open University's very own online Photofit system.

You will hear from a person with a condition known as 'face blindness' and discover what it is like to be unable to recognise the faces of even your family and friends.