NCJ Number
159549
Date Published
1994
Length
19 pages
Annotation
During the past two decades, there has been a rapid increase in the number of psychological studies concerned with how people perceive and remember the human face, but the importance of perceiving and recognizing whole body features as part of eyewitness testimony cannot be overlooked.
Abstract
Research on eyewitness testimony for whole body features such as height and weight indicates that primary errors may occur at the perceptual stage rather than during the recall stage. The perception of body shape and dimension appears to be involved in judgments about personal characteristics. Another important element of person perception is body movement information, and value judgments made about people are clearly influenced by movement and posture information. In addition to values attached to certain body shapes or movements, stereotypical expectations based on the target's physique or movement may affect the way in which that person's actions are interpreted. Psychological research reveals that body perception is a complex process involving not only objective characteristics of the target but also perceived characteristics of the target. Few studies in the psychological literature, however, have assessed the accuracy of memory for whole body information. The use of computers to evaluate the role of whole body information in eyewitness testimony is discussed, and the need for further research on the perception and memory of whole body information is emphasized. 39 references, 1 note, and 6 tables