(U-WIRE) BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — A psychology research project at IU that aims to identify terrorists and other criminals through facial recognition software recently received a grant for $968,000 from the National Institutes of Health.

Rudy 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.

Currently, criminal sketches are dependent on eyewitnesses and their descriptions of 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.

Townsend said he became interested in face recognition about 10 years ago and began basic research that has slowly evolved to his current project.

“[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.”

The research project is concentrating on how people recognize faces through two perceptions: serial processing and parallel processing.

Serial 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.

Townsend 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.

Townsend 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.

“Your proposal has to compete with other renewals, and it gets very competitive,” Townsend said.

Townsend’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.

Graduate student Mario Fific is one of Townsend’s assistants.

“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.”

Post-doctoral student Kvist Innes-Ker also has been working with Townsend since 1998.

“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.”

Townsend said he believes this research will be a great benefit.

“The university and community benefit from research, and people don’t realize it,” Townsend said. “It’s a benefit to the local economy.”

Fific said he believes the most important aspect of the research is to help others understand how the brain perceives objects.

“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.

Townsend said he is excited about receiving the grant to continue developing his research.

“I doubt we will get all the answers with this grant,” Townsend said. “As you do more research, you open up more questions.”