Parallel approaches to composite production

This paper examines two facial composite systems that present multiple faces during construction to more closely resemble natural face processing. We evaluated a ‘parallel’ version of PRO-fit, which presents facial features in sets of six or twelve, and EvoFIT, a system in development, that contains a holistic face model and an evolutionary interface. The PRO-fit parallel interface turned out not to be quite as good as the ‘serial’ version as it appeared to interfere with holistic face processing. Composites from EvoFIT were named almost three times better than PRO-fit, but a benefit emerged under feature encoding, suggesting that recall has a greater role for EvoFIT than previously thought. In general, an advantage was found for feature encoding, replicating a previous finding in this area, and also for a novel ‘holistic’ interview.