Department of Psychology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada.
Department of Psychology, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK.
Memory. 2023 Oct;31(9):1218-1231. doi: 10.1080/09658211.2023.2250162. Epub 2023 Aug 30.
Border control officers may be on the lookout for wanted people while they verify that travellers match their passport photos. We developed a novel experimental paradigm to investigate whether people are more likely to report that someone is wanted if they also believe that person is using a fraudulent passport. In two experiments, undergraduate students assumed the role of a border control officer and completed multiple "shifts" of a face matching task designed to simulate a passport verification check. Before each shift participants viewed posters of wanted people and were instructed to report any sightings if a wanted person appeared in any of the images during the passport check. Participants were more likely to say an individual was wanted if they also believed the person did not match their passport image. In addition, the accuracy of wanted person sightings was reduced for trials with nonmatching passports compared to trials with matching passports. This suggests wanted people with matching passports were easier to spot because participants had an additional image to compare with their memory of the person in the wanted poster.
边境管制官员在核实旅客的护照照片时，可能会留意通缉犯。我们开发了一种新颖的实验范式，以调查如果人们认为某人使用的是伪造护照，他们是否更有可能报告该人是通缉犯。在两项实验中，本科学生扮演边境管制官员的角色，并完成了多次面部匹配任务的“轮班”，这些任务旨在模拟护照验证检查。在每次轮班前，参与者都会观看通缉犯的海报，并被指示如果在护照检查过程中任何图像中出现通缉犯，就报告任何发现。如果参与者还认为该人与其护照照片不匹配，他们更有可能说该人是通缉犯。此外，与匹配护照的试验相比，不匹配护照的试验中，通缉犯的目击准确性降低。这表明，有匹配护照的通缉犯更容易被发现，因为参与者有一个额外的图像来与通缉海报上的人的记忆进行比较。
