Bobak Anna K, Mileva Viktoria R, Hancock Peter J B
Psychology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Stirling, Cottrell Building, Stirling, FK9 4LA, UK.
Cogn Res Princ Implic. 2019 Jul 22;4(1):27. doi: 10.1186/s41235-019-0174-3.
The role of image colour in face identification has received little attention in research despite the importance of identifying people from photographs in identity documents (IDs). Here, in two experiments, we investigated whether colour congruency of two photographs, shown side by side, affects face-matching accuracy. Participants were presented with two images from the Models Face Matching Test (experiment 1) and a newly devised matching task incorporating female faces (experiment 2) and asked to decide whether they show the same person or two different people. The photographs were either both in colour, both in grayscale, or mixed (one in grayscale and one in colour). Participants were more likely to accept a pair of images as a "match", i.e. same person, in the mixed condition, regardless of whether the identity of the pair was the same or not. This demonstrates a clear shift in bias between "congruent" colour conditions and the mixed trials. In addition, there was a small decline in accuracy in the mixed condition, relative to when the images were presented in colour. Our study provides the first evidence that the hue of document photographs matters for face-matching performance. This finding has important implications for the design and regulation of photographic ID worldwide.
尽管从身份证件（ID）中的照片识别人员非常重要，但图像颜色在面部识别中的作用在研究中却很少受到关注。在此，我们通过两项实验研究了并排展示的两张照片的颜色一致性是否会影响面部匹配的准确性。在实验1中，向参与者展示了来自模特面部匹配测试的两张图像，在实验2中，展示了一个新设计的包含女性面部的匹配任务，并要求他们判断展示的是同一个人还是两个不同的人。照片要么都是彩色的，要么都是灰度的，要么是混合的（一张是灰度的，一张是彩色的）。在混合条件下，参与者更有可能将一对图像认定为“匹配”，即同一个人，无论这对图像的身份是否相同。这表明在“一致”颜色条件和混合试验之间存在明显的偏差变化。此外，相对于图像以彩色呈现时，混合条件下的准确性略有下降。我们的研究首次证明了证件照片的色调对面部匹配性能很重要。这一发现对全球身份证件照片的设计和规范具有重要意义。
