Photo ID verification remains challenging despite years of practice

Megan H. Papesh

Matching unfamiliar faces to photographic identification (ID) documents occurs across many domains, including financial transactions (e.g., mortgage documents), controlling the purchase of age-restricted goods (e.g., alcohol sales), and airport security. Laboratory research has repeatedly documented the fallibility of this process in novice observers, but little research has assessed individual differences based on occupational expertise (cf. White et al., PLoS One 9:e103510, 2014; White et al., Proceedings of the Royal Society B 282(1814):20151292, 2015). In the present study, over 800 professional notaries (who routinely verify identity prior to witnessing signatures on legal documents), 70 bank tellers, and 35 undergraduate students completed an online unfamiliar face-matching test. In this test, observers made match/nonmatch decisions to 30 face ID pairs (half of which were matches), with no time constraints and no trial-by-trial feedback. Results showed that all groups performed similarly, although age was negatively correlated with accuracy. Critically, weekly and yearly experience with unfamiliar face matching did not impact performance. These results suggest that accumulated occupational experience has no bearing on unfamiliar face ID abilities and that cognitive declines associated with aging also manifest in unfamiliar face matching.