A test of individuality of human external ear pattern: its application in the field of personal identification

A preliminary study has been undertaken to test the individuality of human ear patterns and its probable use in profile view facial image recognition. Anthropometric measurements on 12 inter-landmark linear distances have been carried out for both left and right ears of 700 male and female individuals. A 12-dimensional feature space has been framed to represent each ear pattern as a feature vector with the measured inter-landmark distances as its components. The Euclidean distances in such a feature space amongst all possible pairs of ear patterns of both male and female individuals have been computed. Very few pairs have distances which fell below the safe distinction limit. The undistinguished pairs were further examined by direct superimposition of their images. None of the ear patterns is found to be exactly the same in morphology to the other. Even the left and right ears of the same individual are not identical. Thus, the present study reconfirms the individuality of ear patterns. For establishment of identity, a questioned profile view facial image can be compared with a control one on the basis of the ear pattern visible in it.