Festival study tests how we find friends in crowds

Research at Portsmouth's Victorious Festival could help police and security teams find missing people in crowded spaces.

Psychologists from the University of Portsmouth used the event to study how people spot friends and family members in large crowds.

The researchers want to understand whether people rely most on faces, clothing or location when searching for someone they know.

Forensic psychology academics said identifying the most effective strategies could help in missing people investigations and security operations.

To investigate, researchers recruited pairs of friends and family members who knew each other well.

Before being separated, participants completed questionnaires describing the person they would be searching for.

They were then given five minutes to find their friend or relative in the crowd while talking through the strategies they used.

The team hope the recordings will reveal which cues, such as faces, clothing or location, people rely on most when trying to identify someone in a busy crowd.

Stefana Juncu, senior lecturer in forensic psychology, said most research into recognising people has been carried out in laboratories, where participants are asked to identify faces from photographs.

"We don't know if [when] it's busy like here in the festival, people actually use the faces or they use clothing or just where they expect their friend to be," she said.

Festivalgoers George and Rosie were among those who took part in the trial.

During his search, George looked for clues including clothing and appearance.

"I do see someone wearing a blue dress, but that's not quite who I'm looking for," he said.

"She is playing with her hair, her brown hair. She's got a blue T-shirt on."

Rosie said she found the task more difficult than she expected because of similarities between people in the crowd.

"Quite a lot of similarities in other people as I was walking about, so yeah, it definitely got more challenging," she said.

It is hoped the findings could help researchers better understand how people recognise those they know in real-world situations.