Scotland Yard, one of the UK’s most illustrious law enforcement agencies, is employing a new tool in its fight against crime: super-recognizers. These are people who are extremely good at remembering faces.
Whether or not such people exist is still a hotly debated issue, but the Yard has decided to employee these people after some positive results were published in various per-review journals around the world giving credence to the idea.
The Yard plans to use these people to spot suspects in crowds and on surveillance feeds.
Did anyone else see Lie to Me? It was a great show that tackled the topics of micro-expressions and “super-recognizers”. The science behind both is very new and largely untested and unproven.
I don’t mean to discredit it, it’s actually quite interesting and very probable, but I don’t know if applying unproven scientific theories to police work is really a good idea. Why not let the topic be reviewed a bit more before you start hiring specialists?
Faces are among the hardest objects for us to recognize quickly, especially when you take into account that most of the time you have half a second to notice someone before they leave your field of vision. I’m sure there are people adept at recognizing faces, but I’m also sure that police could simply be trained to recognize faces better rather down hiring outside consultants.
What do you think?
Source – The Verge
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