Face recognition is robust with incongruent image resolution: relationship to security video images.

Identifying a criminal captured on conventional security video typically requires matching poor-quality video footage against a high-quality photograph. The authors examined the consequence of such a large discrepancy in image quality. Recognition and matching performance of this incongruent-quality condition was compared with that of a congruent one, in which a high-quality photograph was reduced to a low-quality video. Recognition memory was little affected by this manipulation, whereas matching performance of the incongruent condition enjoyed occasional advantage. The results show that person identification can tolerate a large discrepancy between image qualities of matching stimuli when one of the images is of poor quality.