Study may help to identify terrorists

A psychology research project at IU to identify terrorists and other criminals through facial recognition recently received a grant for $968,000 from the National Institutes of Health.\nRudy Professor of Psychology James Townsend, who is in charge of the project, said the research could establish a better way to help identify terrorists and other criminals. \nCurrently, criminal sketches are dependent on eyewitnesses and their description of the criminals. Many times, these sketches are far from how the individual actually looks, Townsend said. He said he hopes that with this research, computer-generated images of criminals can be created three-dimensionally, helping the witnesses accurately describe the features of the individual.\nTownsend said he became interested in face recognition about ten years ago and began a basic research that slowly evolved to his current project.\n"(The research project is a) continuation of a previous grant," Townsend said. "With this grant we are plowing ahead and making a lot of progress."\nThe research project is concentrating on how people recognize faces through two perceptions: serial processing and parallel processing.\nSerial processing is the way an individual takes scrambled patterns, such as a disorganized face, and processes each feature one at a time to piece together an organized face. Parallel processing is the way an individual perceives an object as a whole, viewing all the individual features simultaneously.\nTownsend and his research team have created experimental methods to determine how the brain sees objects as a whole, as opposed to seeing individual random features of an unorganized object.\nTownsend said that he waited for about four months after he submitted his 30 page proposal to see if he would receive the grant for the research. \n"Your proposal has to compete with other renewals, and it gets very competitive," Townsend said.\nTownsend's current research team consists of three graduate students and one post-doctoral student. His research will continue through the summer, and Townsend said he will receive more help in the laboratory with three to four undergraduate students.\nGraduate student Mario Fific is helping Townsend currently on the project.\n"I've been working with Townsend on this research for four years," Fific said. "I will be involved intensely with the research second summer session."\nPost-doctoral student Kvist Innes-Ker also has been working with Townsend since 1998.\n"I started working with emotions in 1995 and it just narrowed down to facial recognition," Innes-Ker said. "(Townsend) wanted someone open to emotions, and he wanted me to be involved."\nTownsend said he believes this research will be a great benefit.\n"The University and community benefit from research, and people don't realize it," Townsend said. "It's a benefit to the local economy."\nFific said he believes the most important aspect of the research is to help others understand how the brain perceives objects.\n"The most important thing (about the research) is the complexity of the brain and uncovering the phenomenon behind it and hopefully help people understand," Fific said.\nTownsend said he is excited about receiving the grant to continue developing his research.\n"I doubt we will get all the answers with this grant," Townsend said. "As you do more research, you open up more questions"