About Us
Here you can find some general information about Super Recognisers Greenwich: the work we do and the people from our team
How it all started...
Dr Josh Davis' first research into the reliability of identification evidence from visual images was conducted during his PhD at Goldsmiths, University of London (2007). Most people make incorrect identification decisions from even excellent-quality CCTV images in ideal circumstances. The first police super-recognisers were tested by the Super-Recognisers Greenwich team just before the London Riots in 2011, as we wanted to find out whether their extraordinary superior face recognition ability could explain why they were already making a disproportionately high number of identifications of suspects from footage. In most cases, it did.
What we do...
Our Super-Recognisers Greenwich team is now based at the University of Greenwich, London. We regularly conduct research on face recognition ability as well as other investigative forensic psychology topics. We liaise with organisations to assist in locating super-recognisers in their current workforce, and to recruit new staff possessing this extraordinarily good face recognition ability. For this, we employ a battery of face recognition and other tests. Our goal is to help organisations find the best staff for specific roles.
Dr Josh P Davis
Dr Josh P Davis (Reader in Applied Psychology) PhD, MSc, BSc, FHEA, MBPsS has been employed at the University of Greenwich since 2008. There he has developed this research team with the goal of making scientific advancements in the understanding of face recognition and forensic psychology, but also to create real-world impact by applying the findings of his work. Read more about the organizations he has consulted here.