Motivational Incentives Improve Unfamiliar Face Matching Accuracy

Summary Unfamiliar face matching is the process of simultaneously verifying the equivalence of two faces. Accuracy within this task is crucial given its importance and prevalence in security domains. However, research has consistently demonstrated that unfamiliar face matching is error prone, suggesting the need for improvement techniques. Motivational incentives have been shown to reliably enhance performance on a wide array of cognitive tasks. Therefore, the current study examined the effect of motivational incentives on unfamiliar face matching. Experiment 1 showed increased accuracy in mismatch trials with the addition of a motivational incentive. The improvement was associated with an increase in reaction time and bias towards making a mismatch response. This bias, however, did not produce a decrease in accuracy on match trials. Experiment 2 replicated this result with a more ecologically valid methodology. The results suggest motivational incentives to be effective at improving performance on mismatch trials, arguably the most important aspect of real‐world unfamiliar face matching.