ArticleCognitive research: principles and implications2022
Masked face identification is improved by diagnostic feature training.
Article in Cognitive research: principles and implications, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 22 citations in OpenAlex.
- Identity in the spotlight: Matching faces without overlapping features.Memory & cognition · 2026Article
- Visual exposure to masked faces benefits personally familiar but not famous face recognition.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Ensemble perception of faces with naturalistic occlusions.Journal of vision · 2025Article
- Information sampling differences supporting superior face identity processing ability.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2025Article
- Trust in automation and the accuracy of human-algorithm teams performing one-to-one face matching tasks.Cognitive research: principles and implications · 2024Article
- Face masks and fake masks: the effect of real and superimposed masks on face matching with super-recognisers, typical observers, and algorithms.Cognitive research: principles and implications · 2024Article
- The role of inversion and face masks on simultaneous and delayed face matching tasks.PloS one · 2024Article
- Face matching and metacognition: investigating individual differences and a training intervention.PeerJ · 2023Article
- Are estimates of faces' ages less accurate when they wear sunglasses or face masks and do these disguises make it harder to later recognise the faces when undisguised?Cognitive research: principles and implications · 2022Article
- Face masks versus sunglasses: limited effects of time and individual differences in the ability to judge facial identity and social traits.Cognitive research: principles and implications · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
To slow the spread of COVID-19, many people now wear face masks in public. Face masks impair our ability to identify faces, which can cause problems for professional staff who identify offenders or members of the public. Here, we investigate whether performance on a masked face matching task can be improved by training participants to compare diagnostic facial features (the ears and facial marks)-a validated training method that improves matching performance for unmasked faces. We show this brief diagnostic feature training, which takes less than two minutes to complete, improves matching performance for masked faces by approximately 5%. A control training course, which was unrelated to face identification, had no effect on matching performance. Our findings demonstrate that comparing the ears and facial marks is an effective means of improving face matching performance for masked faces. These findings have implications for professions that regularly perform face identification.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.