AMBER Alerts: Are School-Type Photographs the Best Choice for Identifying Missing Children?

We investigated how well adults could recognize the faces of children when they differed in appearance from photographs shown in an alert. College students in three studies saw a mock AMBER Alert while watching a television show. The children appeared either well-groomed with positive affect (as in a school photograph) or disheveled with poor affect (as abducted children might appear). Recognition accuracy and confidence were significantly lower when the faces differed in appearance from the alert displayed during the television show. Thus, AMBER Alerts may be more effective if they are accompanied by more than one type of photograph of a missing child, particularly if a photograph is shown in which the child does not appear well-groomed and happy.

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