ABSTRACT

Learning to differentiate between faces is one of the most important tasks attempted by a very young child. This learning constitutes a critical aspect of cognitive and social development. As Goldstein (1983) noted, “The face is the most important visual stimulus in our lives, probably from the first few hours after birth, definitely after the first few weeks” (p. 249). A person’s ability to describe or recognize faces accurately can be a critical forensic factor when the person has witnessed a crime or been the victim of actions (e.g., physical abuse, sexual abuse) by a stranger. Knowledge about how children and adults perceive faces, how accurately they identify and describe them, and an awareness of factors (such as race/ethnicity) that may affect this accuracy, can be important for evaluating the facial descriptions and identifications that people may give during interviews.