SuperIdentity: fusion of identity across real and cyber domains

Under both benign and malign circumstances, people now manage a spectrum of identities across both real-world and cyber domains. Our belief, however, is that all these instances ultimately track back for an individual to reflect a single ‘SuperIdentity’. This paper outlines the assumptions underpinning the SuperIdentity Project, describing the innovative use of data fusion to incorporate novel real-world and cyber cues into a rich framework appropriate for modern identity. The proposed combinatorial model will support a robust identification or authentication decision, with confidence indexed both by the level of trust in data provenance, and the diagnosticity of the identity factors being used. Additionally, the exploration of correlations between factors may underpin the more intelligent use of identity information so that known information may be used to predict previously hidden information. With modern living supporting the ‘distribution of identity’ across real and cyber domains, and with criminal elements operating in increasingly sophisticated ways in the hinterland between the two, this approach is suggested as a way forwards, and is discussed in terms of its impact on privacy, security, and the detection of threa

Understanding person acquisition using an interactive activation and competition network

Face perception is one of the most developed visual skills that humans display, and recent work has attempted to examine the mechanisms involved in face perception through noting how neural networks achieve the same performance. The purpose of the present paper is to extend this approach to look not just at human face recognition, but also at human face acquisition. Experiment 1 presents empirical data to describe the acquisition over time of appropriate representations for newly encountered faces. These results are compared with those of Simulation 1, in which a modified IAC network capable of modelling the acquisition process is generated. Experiment 2 and Simulation 2 explore the mechanisms of learning further, and it is demonstrated that the acquisition of a set of associated new facts is easier than the acquisition of individual facts in isolation of one another. This is explained in terms of the advantage gained from additional inputs and mutual reinforcement of developing links within an interactive neural network system. <br/

The perception of caricature

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Model applicants: the effect of facial appearance on recruitment decisions

The fact that attractiveness is associated with goodness has dominated the literature on first impressions over the last few decades. However, one situation that has been largely ignored is the recruitment setting. While evidence suggests that attractiveness is an asset, little research has addressed the possible disadvantage of having a disfigured face. In this study, perceptions of personal qualities and job skills were obtained from both students and recruitment personnel in response to a mock job applicant who had either no disfigurement, a facial disfigurement, a physical disability or both. The results indicated a marked negative perception of the applicant with the facial disfigurement but no main effect of a physical disability, for both personal qualities and job skills. In addition, analysis of the recruitment decisions of the students suggested that while the possession of a physical disability significantly reduced the chances of being selected, the possession of a facial disfigurement had a far greater negative impact. Comparison across students and recruiters suggested that recruitment experience did offset this bias somewhat, and the results are discussed in terms of both a theoretical understanding of the reactions to disability and the possibilities for re-education in the workplace

IACAPA: modelling recognition and learning of people with an interactive activation and competition model

Several attempts have been made to model the processes involved in face recognition in a biologically and psychologically plausible manner. The most successful of these attempts used an interactive activation and competition (IAC) architecture. Here, the IAC architecture is extended to model acquisition as well as recognition of people, and the influence of name provision on the learning process is examined

Internal feature saliency as a marker of familiarity and configural processing

Two experiments are reported which explore the internal feature advantage (IFA) in familiar face processing. The IFA involves more efficient processing of internal features for familiar faces over unfamiliar ones. Experiment 1 examined the possibility of a holistic basis for this effect through use of a matching task for familiar and unfamiliar faces presented both upright and upside-down. Results revealed the predicted IFA for familiar faces when stimuli were upright, but this was removed when stimuli were inverted. Experiment 2 examined the degree of training required before the IFA was demonstrated. Latency results revealed that whilst 90-180 seconds of exposure was sufficient to generate an IFA of intermediate magnitude, 180-270 seconds of exposure was required before the IFA was equivalent to that demonstrated for a familiar face. Taken together, these results offer three conclusions: first, the IFA is reaffirmed as an objective indicator of familiarity; second, the IFA is seen to rest on holistic processing; and finally, the development of the IFA with familiarity indicates a development of holistic processing with familiarity. As such, insight is gained as to the type of processing changes that occur as familiarity is gradually acquired

Swedish and English adolescents' attitudes toward the community presence of people with disabilities

Predictions derived from North American formulations of normalization suggest that contemporary care policies for people with intellectual disabilities will have a positive impact on societal perceptions of this group. To test this, adolescents' attitudes towards the community presence of people with disabilities in a normalization-advanced country (Sweden) and a relatively less normalization-advanced country (England) were compared. It was expected that Swedish and English participants would hold equally positive views of people with a non-intellectual disability, whereas English participants would hold less positive views than Swedish participants of people with an intellectual disability. The results gave limited support to this expectation when dimensions of participants' attitudes derived from a factor analysis were analysed. These results are discussed with reference to other factors that may influence attitudes in the two countries. In addition, implications for future research and practice are outlined.<br/