Photofit constructions versus verbal descriptions of faces

Abstract

27 women and 9 men, aged 29–63 yrs, worked from memory to provide a verbal description and to construct a Photofit likeness of a target face. Measures of accuracy were derived from 2 decoding tasks. In the 1st task, each of the descriptions and Photofits was given to 10 judges to identify from an array of 24 faces. In the 2nd, 32 judges were involved in a sorting-by-target procedure. Verbal descriptions were significantly more accurate on both measures than were the Photofits. There was no significant correlation between accuracy of description and accuracy of Photofit. When 60 additional judges were given both descriptions and Photofits, the identification rate was no better than for description alone. Results suggest that the limitation in the effectiveness of Photofit constructions is not due to a limitation in descriptive ability. (10 ref) (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)