In psychology, the face superiority effect refers to the phenomena of how human faces are perceived and encoded in memory. Rather than perceiving and encoding individual features of a face (nose, eyes etc.), we perceive and encode a human face as a "holistic" unified whole. This phenomena aids our visual system in the recognition of thousands of faces, a task that would be difficult if it were necessary to recognize a set of individual features and characteristics.
This effect is limited to the perception of upright faces and does not occur when face is in an unusual angle. A 1967 study presented paired images of faces to participants. The faces were either both upright, both inverted, or mixed. Then the participants were shown fifteen pairs of photographs and asked to decide which one they had seen. The participants remembered the upright faces more than the inverted faces.
In criminology
Work has begun to reform the practice of facial composite sketches. The traditional method includes interviewing eyewitnesses about individual features of a suspect's face. However, the accuracy of this method fades quickly, especially if the person is unfamiliar with the suspect. Research has indicated that a more effective procedure would involve cueing an eyewitness with full facial composites and narrow down selection from that point forward. Verbal overshadowing also impacts face recognition in a criminal setting as the verbalization of facial features often focus on details rather than the whole face to the detriment of the original, nonverbal facial memory.