Double-blind lineup administration refers to a lineup in which the lineup administrator does not know the identity of the suspect in the lineup.  Gary Wells, Amy Bradfield, and others have shown that knowledge of a lineup administrator can influence a witness's professed confidence in the accuracy of their lineup decision.  Does an investigator's knowledge of a suspect's identity influence the accuracy of eyewitness identifications?  We have been testing this proposition in our laboratory.  Although we have discovered that this effect is fairly difficult to simulate (Russano, Dickinson, Cass, Kovera, & Cutler, 2006), our most recent research suggests that the effect of double-blind lineup administration may be strongest when other factors are present that decrease the reliability of eyewitness identifications (e.g., biased lineup instructions, simultaneous lineup presentation) and that this effect occurs outside the awareness of either the lineup administrator or the witness (Greathouse & Kovera, 2008).  

This research has been funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation (SES# 9986240).

Publications and Presentations

Greathouse, S. M., & Kovera, M. B.  (2008).  Instruction bias and lineup presentation moderate the effects of administrator knowledge on eyewitness identification.  Law and Human Behavior. DOI 10.1007/s10979-008-9133-0.  Retrieved at http://www.springerlink.com/content/653110767808kt43/fulltext.pdf on July 7, 2008.

Russano, M. B., Dickinson, J. J., Greathouse, S. M., & Kovera, M. B.  (2006).  “Why don’t you take another look at number three?”  Investigator knowledge and its effects on eyewitness confidence and identification decisions.  Cardozo Public Law, Policy, and Ethics Journal, 4, 355-379.  

Kovera, M. B. & Greathouse, S. M.  (2006, July).  Why don't you take another look at number three? Moderators and mediators of the investigator bias effect on eyewitness accuracy.  In L. Stromwell (Chair), Recent developments in eyewitness research.  Symposium presented at the 26^th International Congress of Applied Psychology, Athens, Greece. 

Greathouse, S. M., & Kovera, M. B.  (2006, May).  Effects of single-blind lineup administration on administrator behavior and perceived lineup fairness.  In A. Crossman (Chair), Making an eyewitness identification: How and when and why do we choose? Symposium presented at the meetings of the Association for Psychological Science, New York, NY. 

Greathouse, S. M., & Kovera, M. B. (2004, March). The effects of lineup administrator knowledge on eyewitness identifications. Paper presented at the meetings of the American Psychology-Law Society, Scottsdale, AZ.

Phillips, M., McAuliff, B. D., Kovera, M. B., & Cutler, B. L.  (1999).  Double-blind lineup administration as a safeguard against investigator bias. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84, 940-951.