Face Recognition in Context: A Case Study of Tips on a Call-in Crime TV Show (Case Study‪)‬

Society places increasing demands on the public to help identify terrorists and criminals at large, and to find missing or runaway children (Bailey, 2005; BBC, 2004; Handlin, 2001; Kresnak & Askari, 2002; Martindale, 2003; Merzer, Kuhnhenn, & Strobel, 2003). Since the FBI's first wanted poster in 1910, over 5,400 such "identification orders" have been regularly disseminated to the public (http://www.fbi.gov). Law enforcement agencies regularly call on citizens to aid in the capturing of criminals and communicate with the public in the form of billboards, news stories, press releases, reenactments on call-in shows, and websites. This concept of tapping into public knowledge has been extended in creative ways to solicit information to find missing children, sex offenders, identify unknown deceased victims, and locate terrorists. Law enforcement agencies go to great effort and expense to create composite images from witness reports (Dawes, 1986, Frowd et al., 2005), or to create a photographable clay model of a face from skeletal remains (Manhein, 2005; Manhein, et al., 2000). The faces of missing children are regularly posted in Wal-Mart entrances, on milk cartons, and via