Eyewitness Readings NOTE--these papers are password protected
General Background
Penrod, S. (2003). Eyewitness Identification Evidence: How Well Are Witnesses and Police Performing? Criminal Justice, Spring, 36-47, 54.
Cutler,
B.L. & Penrod, S.D. (1995). Mistaken
identifications: The eyewitness, psychology, and law. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
The criminal justice system has devised several procedural safeguards to protect defendants from erroneous conviction resulting from mistaken eyewitness identification. "Mistaken Identification: The Eyewitness, Psychology, and the Law" reviews the empirical research bearing on the adequacy of those safeguards. After summarizing the research on the accuracy of eyewitness identification, the authors examine diverse factors that influence identification accuracy and review recent research on the effectiveness of commonly used safeguards. This body of literature converges on the conclusion that traditional safeguards such as presence of counsel at lineups, cross-examination, and judges' instructions are ineffective against mistaken eyewitness identification. Expert psychological testimony on eyewitness memory, designed to educate the jury about how memory processes work and how eyewitness testimony should be evaluated, shows much greater promise of protection against mistaken identifications and erroneous convictions.
Gary L. Wells and Elizabeth A. Olson.
Eyewitness Identification. Article to appear in Annual Review of
Psychology--probably 2003
The criminal justice system relies heavily on eyewitness identification for investigating and prosecuting crimes. Psychology has built the only scientific literature on eyewitness identification and has warned the justice system of problems with eyewitness identification evidence. Recent DNA exoneration cases have corroborated the warnings of eyewitness identification researchers by showing that mistaken eyewitness identification was the largest single factor contributing to the conviction of these innocent people. We review major developments in the experimental literature concerning the way that various factors relate to the accuracy of eyewitness identification. These factors include characteristics of the witness, characteristics of the witnessed event, characteristics of testimony, lineup content, lineup instructions, and methods of testing. Problems with the literature are noted with respect to both the relative paucity of theory and the scarcity of base rate information from actual cases.
Kassin, Saul M.; Tubb, V. Anne; Hosch, Harmon
M.; Memon, Amina. American
Psychologist. 2001 May Vol 56(5) 405-416.
On the "general
acceptance" of eyewitness testimony research.
In light of recent advances, this study updated a prior survey of eyewitness experts (S. M. Kassin, P. C. Ellsworth, & V. L. Smith, 1989). Sixty-four psychologists were asked about their courtroom experiences and opinions on 30 eyewitness phenomena. By an agreement rate of at least 80%, there was a strong consensus that the following phenomena are sufficiently reliable to present in court: the wording of questions, lineup instructions, confidence malleability, mug-shot-induced bias, postevent information, child witness suggestibility, attitudes and expectations, hypnotic suggestibility, alcoholic intoxication, the cross-race bias, weapon focus, the accuracy-confidence correlation, the forgetting curve, exposure time, presentation format, and unconscious transference. Results also indicate that these experts set high standards before agreeing to testify. Despite limitations, these results should help to shape expert testimony so that it more accurately represents opinions in the scientific community.
Experiencing,
remembering and reporting events: The cognitive psychology of eyewitness
testimony, by Ralph N. Haber and Lyn Haber. Psychology, Public Policy and
Law, 2000, vol. 6, pp. 1057-1097.
Human beings frequently describe from memory events they have observed, and most people consider these descriptions to be accurate. However, scientific research on memory in the last few decades has revealed that people's memories are often inaccurate. These errors in memory are systematic and are especially likely to occur for the kinds of events that are reported in courtroom testimony: reports of strangers performing brief, violent or unexpected acts that are frightening to the observer/witness. This article examines the research on factors that affect the accuracy of initial observation, encoding and remembering and forgetting such events. The authors consider the special memory issues involved in describing and identifying strangers, and how these can impair the accuracy of eyewitness identifications. Throughout the review of the research findings, the authors consider their impact on courtroom procedures governing eyewitness testimony and identification. The article concludes with a set of policy recommendations based on this scientific evidence.
Shapiro,
P. & Penrod, S. (1986). A meta-analysis of facial identification
studies. Psychological Bulletin, 100, 139-156.
Presents a meta-analysis of 128 eyewitness identification and facial recognition studies involving 960 experimental conditions and 16,950 Ss. The meta-analysis was designed to determine what knowledge has been accumulated on factors that influence facial identification performance and what areas of facial identification research would benefit from further research. Two techniques were used: an effect size analysis, which integrates the effect sizes of independent variables across studies, and a study-characteristics analysis, which integrates the influence of study characteristics on performance. A number of variables operating at the encoding and retrieval stages yielded large effects on performance. These variables included context reinstatement, transformations in the appearance of faces, depth of processing strategies, target distinctiveness, and elaboration at encoding. Additional variables yielding strong effects on recognition performance were exposure time, cross-racial identification, and retention interval. There was little correspondence between a variable's impact on hit rate and false-alarm rate. A list of the studies used in the meta-analysis is appended.
Bruce W. Behrman and Sherrie L. Davey. Law and Human Behavior, Vol. 25, No. 5, October 2001 Eyewitness Identification in Actual Criminal Cases: An Archival Analysis,
This study analyzed 271 actual police cases in order to address several prevalent issues in the eyewitness literature. Suspect identification (SI) rates were obtained for 289 photographic lineups, 258 field showups, 58 live lineups, and 66 lineup identifications preceded by earlier identifications. SI rates were assessed for 3 levels of extrinsic evidence: no extrinsic evidence, evidence of minimal probative value, and evidence of substantial probative value. The SI rates for the photographic lineups were assessed as a function of delay, same vs. cross-race conditions, witness type, and weapon presence. SI rates declined significantly over time; SI rates were significantly greater for the same-race condition. SI rates were much greater for field showups than photographic lineups, 76% vs. 48% with SI rate of 50% and foil identification rate of 24% in live lineups. The SI rates for the field showups did not vary as a function of eyewitness conditions. The relation between confidence and suspect/foil identifications for the live lineups was significant and moderately high. The utility of archival identification studies for eyewitness testimony research is discussed.
Cross-Race Identification
Meissner, Christian A.; Brigham, John C. Psychology, Public Policy, & Law. 2001 Mar Vol 7(1) 3-35Thirty years of investigating the own-race bias in memory for faces: A meta-analytic review.
Platz, Stephanie J.; Hosch, Harmon M. Journal of Applied Social Psychology. 1988 Sep Vol 18(11, Pt 1) 972-984. Cross-racial/ethnic eyewitness identification: A field study.
Using a method similar to that of J. C. Brigham et al (1982), 86 adult convenience store clerks (Anglo, Black, and Mexican-American) were asked to identify 3 male confederate/customers (1 non-Hispanic White American, 1 Black-American, and 1 Mexican-American) who had visited their stores 2 hrs earlier. Clerks were superior at identifying customers of their own racial or ethnic group. For clerks who made an identification, the correlation between the recognition accuracy and confidence in their identification was not significant. Results demonstrate that all 3 racial/ethnic groups were subject to the own-other groups identification accuracy phenomenon.
MacLin, Otto H.; MacLin, M. Kimberly; Malpass, Roy S. MacLin, O. H. Psychology, Public Policy,
& Law. 2001 Mar Vol 7(1) 134-152.
Race, arousal, attention, exposure and delay: An examination of factors
moderating face recognition.
A large percentage of people recently exonerated by DNA evidence were imprisoned on the basis of faulty eyewitness identification. Many of these cases involved victims and suspects of different races. Two studies examined the recognition of Hispanic and Black target faces by Hispanic participants under nonoptimal viewing conditions. When viewing time decreased, recognition performance for same- and other-race faces systematically shifted downward. Recognition accuracy for faces of both races decreased under conditions of high negative arousal and attention load; however, recognition of same-race faces was differentially affected by attention distractors. Face recognition accuracy was not affected by a delay between initial presentation of the faces and the face recognition test. An understanding of how recognition of other-race persons differs from that of same-race persons can assist by reducing misidentifications and ensuring that the perpetrator rather than an innocent person is imprisoned.
Exposure Duration
Memon, A., Hope, L., & Bull, R. (2003). Exposure duration: Effects on eyewitness accuracy and confidence. British Journal of Psychology 94(3): 339-354.
The current study examined the relationship between the length of exposure to a face in an eyewitness setting and identification accuracy and confidence. A sample of 164 young (aged 17-25 yrs) and older (aged 59-81 yrs) adults viewed a simulated crime in which they saw the culprit's face for a short (12 sec) or long (45 sec) duration. They were then tested with a target absent (a line-up not containing the culprit) or target present line-up. Identification accuracy rates for both young and older participants were significantly higher under the long exposure condition. In the short exposure condition, witnesses who had made a correct identification of the target were more confident than incorrect witnesses. In the long exposure condition the confidence ratings of accurate and inaccurate witnesses did not differ. Discussion focuses on the extent to which extended exposure may inflate confidence judgments and variables that may moderate the relationship between exposure duration and face recognition accuracy.
Weapon focus:
Steblay, Nancy Mehrkens SOURCE: Law and human behavior, 1992, vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 413. A meta-analytic review of the weapon focus effect.
This meta-analytic review examined 19 tests of the weapon focus effect--the hypothesis that the presence of a weapon during commission of a crime will negatively affect an eyewitness's ability to later identify the perpetrator. A significant overall difference between weapon-present and weapon-absent conditions was demonstrated, with weapon presence leading to reduced identification accuracy. Overall, the size of the effect was small (.13) for the dependent measure of lineup identification and moderate (.55) for feature accuracy. Discussion focuses on those factors which appear to mediate and facilitate the weapon focus effect.
Pickel, Kerri L. AFFILIATION Pickel, K. L. Memory. 1998 May Vol 6(3) 277-295. Unusualness and threat as possible causes of "weapon focus."
Examined both threat and unusualness as possible explanations for "weapon focus" in eyewitness memory. In 2 experiments, a total of 486 Ss viewed videotapes depicting interactions in business establishments. The target character was either empty-handed or held different objects that varied in both threat and unusualness. Witnesses attempted to describe the target's features and clothing, identify the object held by him (if any), and identify him in a photo line-up. The accuracy of witnesses' descriptions was affected by unusualness but not threat. Identification accuracy did not differ by condition. Witnesses had difficulty remembering the low-threat, non-unusual object; many either failed to identify it (Exp 1) or reported seeing no object (Exp 2). Results of both experiments imply that weapon focus, when it occurs, may do so because weapons are unexpected.
Pickel, Kerri L. Law & Human Behavior. 1999 Jun Vol 23(3) 299-311. The influence of context on the "weapon focus" effect.
Two experiments investigated context effects in "weapon focus." In Exp 1, 129 undergraduates who watched a videotape depicting an armed man provided less accurate descriptions of him if the action occurred in a setting in which a gun is unexpected rather than commonly seen. Identification accuracy did not vary, and the degree of threat in the man's behavior had no effect. In Exp 2, using 122 undergraduates, the target was shown dressed either as a police officer or as a Catholic priest, and he carried either a handgun or a cellular phone. The witnessess' descriptions were poorer if the target carried an object that was inconsistent with his occupation (as indicated by his clothing style) and better if the object and occupation were not inconsistent. The results of both experiments imply that weapon focus may occur because weapons are surprising and unexpected within many contexts in which they appear. (
Shaw, Jerry I.; Skolnick, Paul. Journal of Applied Social Psychology. 1999 Nov Vol 29(11) 2328-2341. Weapon focus and gender differences in eyewitness accuracy: Arousal versus salience.
Examined competing theories of arousal versus salience and object enhancement versus reduced perceptual processing as explanations for the weapon focus effect in eyewitness identification. Male and female undergraduate students viewed a video tape of a male or female intruder rudely barging into a classroom while carrying a book, a gun, or an unusual object and demanding to know the whereabouts of another student. Feature accuracy recall of both the intruder and the object were assessed on a postexperimental questionnaire. Results supported the salience and reduced-perceptual-processing hypothesis, suggesting that weapon focus may be a specific instance of a more general salient object effect. An own-gender bias in eyewitness identification was replicated when no weapon or unusual objects distracted eyewitnesses, but was reversed when a weapon or unusual object was present.
Stress Effects
Deffenbacher, K. A.; Bornstein, B. H.; Penrod, S. D. & McGorty, K. (2004). A Meta-Analytic Review of the Effects of High Stress on Eyewitness Memory. Law and Human Behavior, 28, 687-706.
In the past 30 years researchers have examined the impact of heightened stress on the fidelity of eyewitness memory. Meta-analyses were conducted on 27 independent tests of the effects of heightened stress on eyewitness identification of the perpetrator or target person and separately on 36 tests of eyewitness recall of details associated with the crime. There was considerable support for the hypothesis that high levels of stress negatively impact both types of eyewitness memory. Meta-analytic Z-scores, whether unweighted or weighted by sample size, ranged from -5.40 to -6.44 (high stress condition - low stress condition). The overall effect sizes were -.31 for both proportion of correct identifications and accuracy of eyewitness recall. Effect sizes were notably larger for target-present (TP) than for target-absent (TA) lineups, for eyewitness identification studies than for face recognition studies, and for eyewitness studies employing a staged crime than for eyewitness studies employing other means to induce stress.
Post-Event Information
Following are several recent publication in this area--I know of no meta-analyses or recent reviews but each gives short reviews of relevant prior research
Sutherland, Rachel; Hayne, Harlene. Applied Cognitive Psychology. 2001 May Vol 15(3)
249-263. The
effect of postevent information on adults' eyewitness reports.
The present experiment examined the conditions under which adults' reports of an event are influenced by information encountered after the event occurred. Adults were exposed to neutral, leading, and misleading postevent information about a target event 24 hrs after that event. 24 hrs after exposure to postevent information, participants were first asked a general, open ended question (free recall test procedure) and were then asked a series of specific questions. Some participants were asked to select their response from 2 possible alternatives (recognition test procedure) and some participants were required to generate their own answers to the same questions (directed recall test procedure). The nature of the original information, the nature of the postevent information, and the specificity of the questioning procedure influenced the number of correct responses and the number of misleading errors that participants made.
Wright, Daniel B.; Self,
Gail; Justice, Chris. British
Journal of Psychology. 2000 May Vol 91(2) 189-202. Memory
conformity: Exploring misinformation effects when presented by another person.
Demonstrated that post-event information, when delivered by another person, can affect people's memory reports. In the first experiment 40 participants (20-25 yrs old) were shown several cars, and later, in pairs, given an 'old'/'new' recognition test on these cars plus several lures. There was a small but reliable effect of memory conformity. When the person was given misinformation this lowered accuracy, while presenting accurate information increased accuracy. In the second experiment 40 participants (19-28 yrs old), in pairs, viewed an identical crime except that half saw an accomplice with the thief and half did not. Initial memories were very accurate, but after discussing the crime with the other person in the pair (who saw a slightly different sequence), most pairs conformed. Confidence ratings strongly predicted which person in the pair persuaded the other. Parallels with eyewitness testimony in the Oklahoma bombing case and implications for police interviewing more generally are discussed.
Searcy, Jean; Bartlett, James C.; Memon,
Amina. Legal & Criminological Psychology. 2000 Sep Vol 5(Part2) 219-235.
Influence of
post-event narratives, line-up conditions and individual differences on false
identification of young and older eyewitnesses.
Compared effects of post-event information and sequential line-up presentation on false identification by young and elderly adults. 98 community-dwelling older adults (aged 57-83 yrs) and 97 college students (aged 19-33 yrs) saw a videotape of a simulated crime, then heard an auditory narrative. Some heard a review of the events of the crime (including some misinformation) and others heard a control narrative that was unrelated to the video. Ss recalled the crime and then saw either a simultaneous or sequential target-absent line-up. The study compared the relationship of the experimental variables and several individual difference measures to false identification rates on the line-up. Sequential line-ups reduced false identification rates for young and elderly adults. Hearing a relevant post-event narrative increased false identifications, but only in the older group. For the elderly, high verbal recall of the perpetrator's characteristics was also associated with higher false identification rates. In addition, it was found that (1) misleading information in the post-event narratives influenced line-up choices, and (2) higher false identification rates were related to perseverative errors in the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, memory self-efficacy and low Belief in a Just World.
Wright, Daniel B.; Loftus, Elizabeth F.; Hall, Melanie. Applied Cognitive Psychology.
2001 Sep Vol 15(5) 471-482.
Now you see it; now
you don't: Inhibiting recall and recognition of scenes.
Postevent misleading information can distort people's memories by altering and adding scenes. But can you also inhibit the retrieval of information from memory? In two studies the authors show that postevent information can make memory for a scene less accessible. In both studies 268 participants first saw an event (e.g. a restaurant scene displayed in slides, or a drunk-driving incident shown via a video clip). Later they were shown the same event without a critical scene and were told either to use this to generate a story (Experiment 1) or to imagine the event (Experiment 2). Finally they were tested. Relative to controls, this postevent omission led to fewer people reporting the critical scene in free recall and in recognition. Thus, the authors demonstrated that it may be possible to inhibit memories. This finding has important implications for eyewitness testimony and the recovered memory debate.
Expectations re Lineups
Steblay, Nancy Mehrkens AFFILIATION Steblay, N. M. Law & Human Behavior. 1997 Jun Vol 21(3) 283-297. Social influence in eyewitness recall: A meta-analytic review of lineup instruction effects.
Past research has considered the impact of biased police lineup instructions upon eyewitness lineup performance. Biased instructions either suggest to the eyewitness that the perpetrator is in the lineup or otherwise discourage a "no choice" response. A meta-analysis of 18 studies was employed to review the hypothesis that biased instructions lead to greater willingness to choose and less accurate lineup identifications than do unbiased instructions. The role of moderating variables in the instruction procedure was also considered. In support of the hypothesis, a significantly higher level of choosing followed biased instructions. Lineup type moderated performance accuracy, however. For target-absent lineups the increased level of choosing following biased instructions resulted in reduced identification accuracy. Biased instructions within a target-present lineup generated a higher level of confidence, but had minimal impact on accuracy. Implications for police practice are discussed.
Mugshots and Unconscious Transference
Deffenbacher, K. A., Bornstein, B. H., and Penrod, S. D. (under review 6/05). Mugshot Exposure Effects: Retroactive Interference, Mugshot Commitment, Source Confusion, and Unconscious Transference.
Two separate meta-analyses were conducted on 32 independent tests of the hypothesis that prior mugshot exposure decreases accuracy at a subsequent lineup. Mugshot exposure both significantly decreased proportion correct (mean effect size = -.15) and increased the false alarm rate (+.48). A mugshot commitment effect, arising from the identification of someone in a mugshot, was a substantial moderator of both these effects, with effect sizes of -.48 and +.72, respectively. Simple retroactive interference, where the target is not included among mugshots and no one in a mugshot is present in the subsequent lineup, did not significantly impair target identification. A third meta-analysis was conducted on 19 independent tests of the hypothesis that failure of memory for facial source or context results in transference errors. The effect size was more than twice as large for “transference” studies involving mugshot exposure in proximate temporal context with the target (+.44) than for “bystander” studies with no subsequent mugshot exposure (+.19).
Phillips, Mark R.; Geiselman, R. Edward; Haghighi, David; Lin, Cynthia. Criminal Justice & Behavior. 1997 Sep Vol 24(3) 370-390. Some boundary conditions for bystander misidentification.
Provides a direct test of the memory-blending version of unconscious transference-like (UT) effects vs the alternative versions by manipulating whether an inference of bystander-perpetrator sameness was plausible or not possible. 650 undergraduates viewed a videotaped, simulated robbery. Ss were significantly more likely to select a bystander from a photoarray than the actual perpetrator, and they were more confident in their misidentifications of the bystander. Ss who were shown a photoarray without the bystander present were over 6 times more likely to select the perpetrator than observers who were shown an array that included the bystander. The significant misidentifications of the bystander were eliminated when the event was restaged to show both the bystander and the perpetrator for a few seconds in the same frames of the video. It was concluded that mere bystander presence is not sufficient to produce significant bystander misidentifications and that an eyewitness must make an inference that the bystander and the perpetrator are the same person. Implications for the understanding of unconscious transference are explored.
Geiselman, R. Edward; Haghighi, David;
Stown, Ronna. Psychology, Crime & Law.
1996 Vol 2(3) 197-209. Unconscious
transference and characteristics of accurate and inaccurate eyewitnesses.
Two experiments involving 349 undergraduate students were conducted to evaluate the incidence of unconscious transference (UT) in eyewitness identification performance. A cross-race analysis, a test of the confidence-accuracy relation, and an assessment of witness characteristics associated with accurate vs mistaken identifications were also conducted. Little conclusive evidence was obtained for UT utilizing either a video-taped event or a live staged event. However, negative cross-race effects were observed as well as null relations between both witness-reported confidence and witness-reported goodness-of-view with accuracy. High "self-monitors" showed the greatest probability of hits from target-present photoarrays whereas politically conservative Ss showed the greatest probability of false alarms from target-absent photoarrays. Implications for the evaluation of eyewitness evidence are discussed.
J. Don Read. In Adult eyewitness testimony:
Current trends and developments. By Ross, David Frank (Ed); Read, J. Don
(Ed); Toglia, Michael P. (Ed) New York, NY, US: Cambridge University Press
(1994) xiv, 434 pp.. Understanding bystander misidentifications: The role of familiarity and contextual knowledge
The present chapter maintains [a] distinction between recognition and identification decisions and asks what additional information accompanies the witness’ shift from a recognition to an identification decision, and to what extent perceived familiarity is the basis for one or both of these decisions. Analyses of our subjects’ responses collected prior to an identification task suggested that their misidentifications were based on a combination of perceived familiarity, contextual recall, and the use of conscious inferential processes that provided a rationale for the selection of the most plausible lineup member. In short, the identification task was perhaps seen by our subject-witnesses as a problem to be solved, one in which a decision was arrived at by assessing the relative plausibility as well as the relative similarity (compare Lindsay & Johnson, 1989; Wells, 1984; 1992) of each lineup member.
Ross, David R.; Ceci, Stephen J.; Dunning, David; Toglia, Michael P. Journal of Applied Psychology. 1994 Dec Vol 79(6) 918-930. Unconscious transference and mistake identity: When a witness misidentifies a familiar with innocent person.
Unconscious transference occurs when an eyewitness to a crime misidentifies a familiar but innocent person from a police lineup. In Experiment 1, Ss watched a film of a robbery. Transference Ss saw an innocent bystander in the film, whereas control Ss saw the same film without the innocent bystander. When asked to identify the assailant from a lineup that contained the familiar bystander without the assailant, transference Ss were nearly 3 times more likely to misidentify the bystander than were control Ss. A majority of the transference Ss who misidentified the bystander inferred that the bystander and the assailant were the same person, which reflects what we refer to as conscious inference. In Experiment 2, the unconscious transference effect was eliminated when transference Ss were informed prior to being shown the lineup that the bystander and the assailant were not the same person. Experiments 3 and 4 found that transference Ss inferred that the bystander and the assailant were the same person at the time they first observed the assailant.
Identification Procedures
Wells, Gary L.; Small, Mark; Penrod, Steven; Malpass, Roy S.; Fulero, Solomon M.; Brimacombe, C. A. E. Law & Human Behavior. 1998 Dec Vol 22(6) 603-647. Eyewitness identification procedures: Recommendations for lineups and photospreads. Alt source
There is increasing evidence that false eyewitness identification is the primary cause of the conviction of innocent people. In 1996, the American Psychology/Law Society, Division 41 of the American Psychological Association, appointed a subcommittee to review scientific evidence and make recommendations regarding the best procedures for constructing and conducting lineups and photospreads. Three important themes from the scientific literature relevant to lineup methods were identified and reviewed, namely relative-judgment processes, the lineups-as-experiments analogy, and confidence malleability. Recommendations are made that double-blind lineup testing should be used, that eyewitnesses should be forewarned that the culprit might not be present, that distractors should be selected based on the eyewitness's verbal description of the perpetrator, and that confidence should be assessed and recorded at the time of identification. The potential costs and benefits of these recommendations are discussed.
Wells, Gary L.; Malpass, Roy S.; Lindsay, R. C.
L.; Fisher, Ronald P.; Turtle, John W.; Fulero, Solomon M. A
American Psychologist. 2000 Jun Vol 55(6) 581-598. From the lab to the
police station: A successful application of eyewitness research.
The U.S. Department of Justice released the first national guide for collecting and preserving eyewitness evidence in October 1999. Scientific psychology played a large role in making a case for these procedural guidelines as well as in setting a scientific foundation for the guidelines, and eyewitness researchers directly participated in writing them. The authors describe how eyewitness researchers shaped understanding of eyewitness evidence issues over a long period of time through research and theory on system variables. Additional pressure for guidelines was applied by psychologists through expert testimony that focused on deficiencies in the procedures used to collect the eyewitness evidence. DNA exoneration cases were particularly important in leading U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno to notice the eyewitness literature in psychology and to order the National Institute of Justice to coordinate the development of national guidelines. The authors describe their experience as members of the working group, which included prosecutors, defense lawyers, and law enforcement officers from across the country.
TIM VALENTINE and PAMELA HEATON, APPLIED COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 13: S59-S72 (1999). An Evaluation of the Fairness of Police Line-Ups and Video Identifications.
Mistaken eyewitness identification is a major source of miscarriages of justice. In England and Wales, procedures for obtaining identification evidence are set out in legislation. The vast majority of identifications are obtained using a traditional `live' identity parade (or line-up). However, in some circumstances video identifications are being used more frequently. Records of line-ups and video identifications used in actual criminal cases were obtained. The fairness of these two procedures was compared by use of a mock witness procedure. In a perfectly fair line-up the suspect would be chosen, by chance, by 11% of the mock witnesses. However, 25% of mock witnesses selected the suspect from 25 photographs of live line-ups, compared to 15% of mock witnesses who selected the suspect from video identifications. An analysis of covariance, taking the number of visual features mentioned in the original witness's first description as the covariate, showed that the proportion choosing the suspect was significantly smaller from video identifications. It is concluded that the video line-ups were fairer than the live line-ups, and therefore that wider use of video identifications has the potential to improve the reliability of eyewitness identification evidence
Showups
Steblay, N., Dysart, J., Fulero, S., & Lindsay, R. C. L. (2003). Eyewitness accuracy rates in police showup and lineup presentations: A meta-analytic comparison. Law & Human Behavior 27(5): 523-540.
Meta-analysis is used to compare identification accuracy rates in showups and lineups. Eight papers were located, providing 12 tests of the hypothesis and including 3013 participants. Results indicate that showups generate lower choosing rates than lineups. In target present conditions, showups and lineups yield approximately equal hit rates, and in target absent conditions, showups produce a significantly higher level of correct rejections. False identification rates are approximately equal in showups and lineups when lineup foil choices are excluded from analysis. Dangerous false identifications are more numerous for showups when an innocent suspect resembles the perpetrator. Function of lineup foils, assessment strategies for false identifications, and the potential impact of biases in lineup practice are suggested as additional considerations in evaluation of showup versus lineup efficacy.
Confidence and Accuracy
Penrod, Steven; Cutler, Brian. Psychology, Public Policy, & Law. 1995 Dec Vol 1(4) 817-845. Witness confidence and witness accuracy: Assessing their forensic relation.
Jurors overbelieve eyewitnesses, have difficulty reliably differentiating accurate from inaccurate eyewitnesses, and are not adequately sensitive to aspects of witnessing and identification conditions. A major source of juror unreliability is reliance on witness confidence, a dubious indicator of eyewitness accuracy even when measured at the time an identification is made. Confidence appears to be influenced by postidentification factors such as repeated questioning, briefings in anticipation of cross-examination, and feedback about the behavior of other witnesses. Juror reliance on witness confidence appears to be unaffected by traditional safeguards such as cross-examination and judges' instructions in eyewitness cases. Expert psychological testimony on the factors that influence eyewitness memory, in contrast, appears to reduce juror reliance on confidence and enhance use of other factors known to affect memory.
Sporer, Siegfried Ludwig; Penrod, Steven;
Read, Don; Cutler, Brian.
Psychological Bulletin. 1995 Nov Vol 118(3) 315-327. Choosing, confidence, and
accuracy: A meta-analysis of the confidence^accuracy relation in eyewitness
identification studies.
There is widespread agreement among researchers that the correlation between identification accuracy and confidence in identification judgments is weak. For this reason, many experts caution against heavy reliance on confidence when evaluating identification accuracy. The authors present a meta-analytic review of 30 studies using staged-event methods that include target-present and target-absent lineups. Although the overall confidence-accuracy correlation in these studies corresponds to that reported in previous reviews, including choice as a moderator variable leads to a somewhat different conclusion. For choosers (those making positive identification), the confidence-accuracy correlation was reliably and consistently higher than for nonchoosers. In addition, the mean confidence level for correct choosers is higher than that for incorrect choosers in every study.
Confidence Malleability
Gary L. Wells Elizabeth A. Olson Steve Charman (2003). Distorted Retrospective Eyewitness Reports as Functions of Feedback and Delay. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 9, 42–52
Participant-eyewitnesses viewed a crime video and attempted an identification of the culprit from a culprit-absent lineup. The 253 mistaken-identification eyewitnesses were randomly given confirming, disconfirming, or no feedback regarding their identifications. Feedback was given either immediately or delayed 48 hrs and measures were given immediately or 48 hrs later. As expected, immediate feedback led to strong distortions of recalled confidence as well as distorted retrospective reports of the amount of attention they paid during witnessing, how good their view of the culprit was, how well they could make out details of the culprit's face, how long it took them to make their identification, and other measures related to the processes by which they made their identifications. Unexpectedly, neither delaying the measures for 48 hrs nor delaying feedback for 48 hrs moderated these distortion effects. The robustness of the post-identification feedback effect across these delay conditions underscores the need for double-blind lineups and neutral assessments of certainty and other judgments by eyewitnesses at the time of the lineup.
Luus, C. A. Elizabeth; Wells, Gary L. Journal of Applied Psychology. 1994 Oct Vol 79(5) 714-723.
The malleability of
eyewitness confidence: Co-witness and perseverance effects.
A theft was staged 70 times for pairs of eyewitnesses (N = 140) who then made a photo-lineup identification. Witnesses then received 1 of 9 types of information regarding the alleged identification decision of their co-witness. Witnesses told that their co-witness identified the same person whom they had identified showed an increase in the confidence they expressed to a confederate police officer. Confidence deflation occurred among witnesses who thought their co-witness either identified another person or had stated that the thief was not in the lineup. Initial co-witness information was not mitigated by subsequent changes to that information. A 2nd study showed videotapes of these witnesses' testimonies to observers (n = 378) whose credibility ratings of the testimony paralleled the witnesses' self-rated confidence. Eyewitness identification confidence was highly malleable after the identification had been made despite the fact that physical resemblance between the culprit and person identified had not changed.
John S. Shaw III. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: Applied, June 1996 Vol. 2, No. 2, 126-146. Increases
in Eyewitness Confidence Resulting From Postevent Questioning.
This study examined whether postevent questioning can lead to increases in witness confidence without a corresponding impact on witness accuracy. After viewing slides of a simulated crime scene, participants in 3 experiments answered forced-choice questions about target items in the slides. Subsequently, participants were exposed to postevent questioning about some of their forced-choice responses. Postevent questioning led to significantly higher later confidence ratings for incorrect responses in all 3 experiments, as well as for correct responses in Experiment 1, but had no impact on the overall accuracy of later forced-choice responses. A retrieval-fluency hypothesis is offered as an explanation for the increases in confidence. These results suggest that police questioning of witnesses may lead to inflated witness confidence judgments in later courtroom testimony.
Field Experiments
Brigham, John C.; Maass, Anne; Snyder, Larry D.; Spaulding, Kenneth Brigham, J. C. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology. 1982 Apr Vol 42(4) 673-681. Accuracy of eyewitness identification in a field setting.
64 White and 9 Black 17-60 yr old clerks working alone in convenience stores were asked by "law interns" to identify from photograph lineups (prepared by the local police department) 2 male customers, one Black and one White, who had been in their store 2 hrs earlier. Ss were able to make correct identifications about one-third of the time. Even when no-guesses were omitted, identifications were correct less than half (46.8%) of the time. There was a substantial relationship between accuracy and Ss' confidence that they were correct. Only slight evidence of an own-race bias in accuracy was found among the Whites. White Ss' ability to identify the Black customer was significantly related to the amount of self-reported cross-racial experiences. The attractiveness and distinctiveness of the customers was related to the frequency of correct identifications, as was the effective size and functional size of the lineups used. Black Ss showed better overall recognition accuracy than did White Ss.
Krafka, Carol; Penrod, Steven Krafka, C. Journal of
Personality & Social Psychology. 1985 Jul Vol 49(1) 58-69.
Reinstatement of context in a field experiment on eyewitness identification.
Hypothesized that reinstating contextual information would improve eyewitness identification performance for customer-present arrays. 85 store clerks were asked to identify a previously encountered customer from an array of photographs. Context was reinstated by providing physical cues from the customer encounter and by instructing the S to privately recall the events leading up to the customer's purchase. When the customer's photograph was included in the array, context reinstatement significantly increased accurate identifications. The context effect was observed both 2 and 24 hrs after the customer encounter and did not affect the ratio between possible types of error (false identifications and incorrect rejections of the photograph array). When the customer's picture was missing from the array, Ss were quite accurate in rejecting the photographs, and reinstatement of context had no additional influence. For Ss choosing from a lineup, confidence was related to accuracy only under conditions in which context was reinstated.
Pigott, Melissa; Brigham, John C. Pigott, M. Journal of
Applied Psychology. 1985 Aug Vol 70(3) 547-555.
Relationship between accuracy of
prior description and facial recognition.
Investigated the appropriateness of a Supreme Court guideline for the evaluation of eyewitness identification evidence that concerns the relationship between the accuracy of an eyewitness's description of a suspect and the witness's accuracy in his/her lineup decision. 120 undergraduates were exposed briefly to a target person and required to describe his physical characteristics. Later they were asked to identify the target person from a photograph lineup in which he was or was not present. Ss' certainty in their decision was also assessed. Results provide no support for the validity of the Supreme Court's guideline: There was no relationship between description and identification accuracy or between an S's description and the characteristics of the person identified (rightly or wrongly) from the lineup. When all Ss who identified someone from the lineup were combined, a substantial relationship between confidence and accuracy was found. Theoretical issues concerning the effects of differences between target persons and between witnessing conditions are discussed.
Ralph Norman Haber, Ph.D., and Lyn Haber, Ph.D. Paper presented at the Annual
convention of the Psychonomics Society, Orlando, Florida, November 16, 2001.
Meta-Analysis of Research on Eyewitness
Lineup Identification Accuracy
Cognitive scientists have conducted hundreds of experiments on the factors that affect eyewitness accuracy. We performed an accuracy meta-analysis of the nearly 50 experiments in which witness-subjects observed a crime and then attempted to identify the perpetrator from a lineup. When the perpetrator is known to be in the lineup, the overall correct hit rate (identifying the true perpetrator) is barely 50%, with the remaining 50% of responses erroneous false alarms (identifying someone other than the perpetrator) or misses (reporting that the perpetrator is not present at all). When the perpetrator is known not to be in the lineup, the overall correct reject rate (reporting none of the persons is the perpetrator) is also barely 50%, with the remaining 50% of responses erroneous false alarms (identifying someone as the perpetrator). Subsidiary analyses showed that these findings probably overestimate the accuracy levels of witnesses who observe real life crimes and attempt to identify the perpetrator(s) in a lineup.
Eyewitnesses are not considered experts when they testify in court, so that the accuracy criteria implied by the Federal Daubert rulings do not apply. Research shows, nevertheless, that juries give great credence to eyewitnesses. The results of this meta-analysis indicate that courts should inform juries about the probabilities of eyewitness error.
Juries and Expert Helpfulness
Most relevant material is covered in the 1995 Cutler and Penrod book
Devenport, J. L., Penrod, S. D., & Cutler, B. L. (1997). Eyewitness identification evidence: Evaluating commonsense evaluations. Psychology, Public Policy & Law, 3, 338-361.
Although eyewitness identifications are among the most common forms of evidence presented in criminal trials, both archival studies and psychological research suggest that eyewitnesses are frequently mistaken in their identifications (B. L. Cutler & S. D. Penrod, 1995). In recognition of this problem, the legal system has established a number of safeguards to protect defendants from erroneous convictions resulting from mistaken identifications. These safeguards are based on assumptions regarding attorney, judge, and juror commonsense knowledge of the factors influencing eyewitness identification accuracy. This article addresses the validity of these assumptions by examining the role of commonsense knowledge in attorney, judge, and juror evaluations of eyewitness identification evidence. It concludes that, although these safeguards may not be as effective as the legal system intended them to be, there are a number of practices and policies that may be implemented to safeguard defendants further.
Eyewitness Studies 2003+
Black and White mock jurors' sensitivity to the cross-race effect was investigated by varying the race of the eyewitness in a simulated murder trial of a Black defendant. Participants heard an audiotape of a trial after which they rendered a verdict and rated the credibility of the witnesses. White participants found the prosecution witnesses (including the eyewitness) more credible, and the defense witness less credible, than did Black participants; they were also more likely to find the defendant guilty. The Black eyewitness was perceived as more credible than was the White eyewitness, but eyewitness race had no effect on verdict. These results are consistent with the literature indicating that jurors of different races reach different verdicts, and also that jurors are relatively insensitive to factors that affect eyewitness testimony, such as the cross-race effect.
The authors investigated eyewitnesses' retrospective certainty (see G. L. Wells & A. L. Bradfield, 1999). The authors hypothesized that external influence from the lineup administrator would damage the certainty-accuracy relation by inflating the retrospective certainty of inaccurate eyewitnesses more than that of accurate eyewitnesses (N=245). Two variables were manipulated: eyewitness accuracy (through the presence or absence of the culprit in the lineup) and feedback (confirming vs control). Confirming feedback inflated retrospective certainty more for inaccurate eyewitnesses than for accurate eyewitnesses, significantly reducing the certainty-accuracy relation (from r=.58 in the control condition to r=.37 in the confirming feedback condition). Double-blind testing is recommended for lineups to prevent these external influences on eyewitnesses.
Examined the interaction between testimonial consistency and eyewitness confidence on mock-jurors' judgments of probability that the defendant committed the crime and verdicts. In a 2 (testimonial consistency)*2(confidence) between-groups design, 130 mock-jurors (aged 18-55 yrs) listened to an audio-taped trial of a person charged with armed robbery. Manipulations were contained in the prosecution witness's responses to detailed questioning by prosecution and defense attorneys. Although consistency is considered to be a key marker of accuracy, its impact on judgments was weak and nonsignificant. Witness confidence had a strong influence on judgments, whether testimony was consistent or inconsistent. It is suggested that witness confidence may be more likely to emerge as a dominant influence on juror judgments when the testimony is wide ranging rather than relatively brief and concerned only with a specific issue (e.g., identification confidence).
Participants viewed a simulated crime and attempted an identification from an 9-person target-present or target-absent lineup. The authors examined identification confidence-accuracy relations, contrasting a control condition (n = 310) with 2 manipulations designed to improve confidence scaling. Before indicating confidence, participants reflected on encoding and identification test conditions (n = 316) or suggested hypotheses about why their identification decision might have been wrong (n = 318). Confidence-accuracy correlations were weak and did not differ across conditions. However, for positive identifications, confidence and accuracy were well calibrated in the experimental conditions, although not in the control condition; similar patterns were observed for lineup rejections. Explanations for calibration differences in terms of discrimination difficulty, (mis)match between encoding and test stimuli, and the availability of confidence cues were advanced.
Burgess, M. C. R., & Weaver, G. E. (2003). Interest and attention in facial recognition. Perceptual & Motor Skills 96(2): 467-480.
When applied to facial recognition, the levels of processing paradigm has yielded consistent results: faces processed in deep conditions are recognized better than faces processed under shallow conditions. The own-race advantage in facial recognition also is shown consistently but not clearly explained. This study tested the hypothesis that the levels of processing findings in facial recognition are a result of interest and attention, not differences in processing. This hypothesis was tested for both own and other faces with 105 Caucasian students. Students were asked to answer 1 of 4 types of study questions (deep or shallow processing questions) while viewing the study faces. Students' recognition of a subset of previously presented Caucasian and African-American faces was tested. They indicated their interest in and attention to the task. The typical levels of processing effect was observed (better recognition performance in the deep conditions) for both own- and other-race faces. The typical own-race advantage also was observed regardless of level of processing condition. For both own- and other-race faces, level of processing explained a significant portion of the recognition variance above and beyond what was explained by interest in and attention to the task.
Devenport, J. L., Stinson, V., Cutler, B. L., & Kravitz, D. A. (2002). How effective are the cross-examination and expert testimony safeguards? Jurors' perceptions of the suggestiveness and fairness of biased lineup procedures. Journal of Applied Psychology 87(6): 1042-1054.
Mock jurors (N = 800) viewed a videotaped trial that included information about a lineup identification procedure. Suggestiveness of the eyewitness identification procedure varied in terms of foil, instruction, and presentation biases. Expert testimony regarding the factors that influence lineup suggestiveness was also manipulated. Criteria included juror ratings of lineup suggestiveness and fairness, ratings of defendant culpability, and verdicts. Jurors were sensitive to foil bias but only minimally sensitive to instruction and presentation biases. Expert testimony enhanced juror sensitivity only to instruction bias. These results have implications for the effectiveness of cross-examination and expert testimony as safeguards against erroneous convictions resulting from mistaken identifications.
Dunning, D., & Perretta, S. (2002). Automaticity and eyewitness accuracy: A 10- to 12-second rule for distinguishing accurate from inaccurate positive identifications. Journal of Applied Psychology 87(5): 951-962.
Eyewitness researchers have shown that witnesses accurately choosing the culprit out of a lineup reach their decisions more quickly than those erroneously choosing an innocent individual. However, this research is silent regarding how quickly or slowly witnesses must be, in absolute terms, to indicate that they are accurate or inaccurate. Across 4 studies, the authors discovered that a time boundary of roughly 10 to 12 s best differentiated accurate from inaccurate positive identifications. Witnesses making their identification faster than 10 to 12 s were nearly 90% accurate; those taking longer were roughly 50% accurate. This finding is consistent with previous research showing that accurate witnesses are more likely than inaccurate witnesses to reach their decisions automatically, that is, quickly, without conscious thought or effort.
but see Wells: http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/faculty/gwells/JAPspeed_of_identification.pdf
Geiselman, R. E., Putman, C., Korte, R., Shahriary, M., Jachimowicz, G., & Irzhevsky, V. (2002). Eyewitness expert testimony and juror decisions. American Journal of Forensic Psychology 20(3): 21-36.
Hundreds of research papers have been written concerning the potential inaccuracy of eyewitness recollections (1-3) and several legal remedies have been proposed including eyewitness expert testimony (4). However, relatively little research has been carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of eyewitness expert testimony on juror decision making. Experiment 1 compared the effects of both general and specific expert testimony on juror verdicts and rationales in a mock trial scenario presenting a single eyewitness to an armed robbery and murder. Only specific expert testimony, tying the principles of eyewitness psychology to the case evidence affected juror decisions. Experiment 2 evaluated the effectiveness of presenting these specifics through attorney closing arguments. Results indicated that the adversarial closing arguments led jurors to be skeptical of the eyewitness evidence, and to thereby base their decisions on other evidence. Implications for presenting eyewitness expert testimony in a court of law are discussed. 2
Compared memory for a staged criminal event witnessed live and on video. Memory for robbery was tested in 126 participants (mean ages 29.8 and 30 yrs) witnessing the event either live or on video. Immediately after the event, Ss completed questionnaires probing memory with emphasis on the timing of the event and robber characteristics. Results show that Ss who watched a video recording of the event reported more details and with higher accuracy than Ss who were present on the scene, but the pattern of memory errors were similar in the 2 conditions. It is concluded that laboratory experiments may overestimate the memory of eyewitnesses, but are otherwise able to simulate essential aspects of memory performance in naturalistic contexts.
MacLin, M. K. (2002). The effects of exemplar and prototype descriptors on verbal overshadowing. Applied Cognitive Psychology 16(8): 929-936.
Previous research has found that providing a verbal description for a face impedes later recognition of that face. The current experiment evaluates how the type of information participants (103 undergraduates) are asked to provide about the face affects later recognition. Participants provided attribute, exemplar or prototype information about a person they saw commit a videotaped crime. The verbal overshadowing effect was replicated for participants in the attribute condition. Exemplar participants reproduced this effect, while prototype participants performed nearly as well as controls. Theoretical and practical implications of the type of information witnesses are asked to provide are discussed.
McQuiston, D. E., & Malpass, R. S. (2002). Validity of the mockwitness paradigm: Testing the assumptions. Law & Human Behavior 26(4): 439-453.
Mockwitness identifications are used to provide a quantitative measure of lineup fairness. Some theoretical and practical assumptions of this paradigm have not beet studied in terms of mockwitnesses' decision processes and procedural variation (e.g. instructions, lineup presentation method), and the current experiment was conducted to empirically evaluate these assumptions. 480 mockwitnesss (undergraduate students) were given physical information about a culprit, received 1 of 4 variations of lineup instructions, and were asked to identify the culprit from either a fair or unfair sequential lineup containing 1 of 2 targets. Lineup bias estimates varied as a result of lineup fairness and the target presented. Mockwitnesses generally reported that the target's physical description was their main source of identifying information. The authors findings, support the use of mockwitness identifications as a useful technique for sequential lineup evaluation, but only for mockwitnesses who selected only 1 lineup member. Recommendations for the use of this evaluation procedure are discussed.
Previous studies have demonstrated that instructional manipulation of a participant witness's response criterion on a description task can lead to verbal overshadowing in performance on a subsequent lineup identification task. The current set of experiments (with a total of 576 participants) attempts to replicate this instructional bias effect in verbal overshadowing and extend the paradigm to include variations in lineup presentation format (Exp 1) and repeated descriptions prior to identification (Exp 2). The instructional bias effect is found to persist despite the 'sequential' presentation of lineup members and across repeated recall of a target face 1 week later. Furthermore, both experiments demonstrated that incorrect details generated by participants were predictive of subsequent inaccuracy on the identification task. Both theoretical and applied aspects of the instructional bias effect in verbal overshadowing are discussed.
Memon, A., & Bartlett, J. (2002). The effects of verbalization on face
recognition in young and older adults. Applied Cognitive Psychology 16(6):
635-650.
To explore the forensic implications of "verbal overshadowing" in young and
older eyewitnesses, we examined the effects of providing a verbal face
description on subsequent performance in a lineup task. Young (18-30 yrs) and
older (60-80 yrs) adults viewed a videotaped crime and performed some unrelated
cognitive tasks. Participants in the experimental condition were then asked to
supply a description of the target person in the event or to perform a control
task. Upon completing the description/control task participants attempted to
identify the target person from a target present photo-lineup presented in a
sequential or simultaneous mode. Older participants made more false choices and
sequential testing reduced correct choices. There was a weak trend consistent
with verbal overshadowing that was unrelated to age as well as measures of
verbal and face-matching expertise. Although overshadowing reduced performance
only slightly, it appeared to affect the self-reported use of a feature-matching
strategy linked to accurate decisions by young adults and inaccurate decisions
by senior adults.
Memon, A., & Gabbert, F. (2003). Improving the identification accuracy of
senior witnesses: Do prelineup questions and sequential testing help? Journal of
Applied Psychology 88(2): 341-347.
Eyewitness research has identified sequential lineup testing as a way of reducing false lineup choices while maintaining accurate identifications. The authors examined the usefulness of this procedure for reducing false choices in older adults. Young and senior witnesses viewed a crime video and were later presented with target present or absent lineups in a simultaneous or sequential format. In addition, some participants received prelineup questions about their memory for a perpetrator's face and about their confidence in their ability to identify the culprit or to correctly reject the lineup. The sequential lineup reduced false choosing rates among young and older adults in target-absent conditions. In target-present conditions, sequential testing significantly reduced the correct identification rate in both age groups.
Memon, A., & Gabbert, F. (2003). Unravelling the effects of sequential presentation in culprit-present lineups. Applied Cognitive Psychology 17(6): 703-714.
It is well established that sequential presentation effaces in an eyewitness situation can reduce false identification rates. The effect of a sequential presentation on the probability of accurately identifying a culprit when present in a lineup is less clear. The current study examined the efficacy of the sequential procedure in culprit present lineups approximating the real life condition where a person's appearance has changed between the time they were seen and the identification. Young (17-33 years) and older (58-80 years) witnesses viewed a video of a crime and then engaged in some filler tasks. Later they viewed a culprit-present lineup presented in a simultaneous or sequential format. Some witnesses viewed lineups in which target appearance (hairstyle) had changed and some where it had not. Sequential testing was associated with fewer choices (hits and foil choices) as compared to simultaneous testing. A change of appearance lowered hit rates in sequential test conditions among young adults. Finally, participants in sequential conditions were more likely to report that they expected the target to be present in the lineup...
Memon, A., Hope, L., Bartlett, J., & Bull, R. (2002). Eyewitness recognition errors: The effects of mugshot viewing and choosing in young and old adults. Memory & Cognition 30(8): 1219-1227.
Eyewitness memory is vulnerable to information encountered prior to a lineup. Young (18-30 years) and older (60-80 years) witnesses viewed a crime video. Some witnesses were then exposed to mugshots of innocent suspects that included a critical foil. After a 48-h delay, all the witnesses took part in a target-absent lineup that included the critical foil and five new foils. Witnesses who picked one of the mugshots as the likely perpetrator showed inflated rates of choosing the critical foil from the lineup. Context reinstatement instructions did not reduce choices of innocent foils following mugshot exposure. Despite age-related increases in false choosing, age did not qualify other effects. The results are discussed in terms of commitment, source memory, and gist-based processing.
*Perfect, T. J.. (2004). The role of self-rated ability in the accuracy of confidence judgements in eyewitness memory and general knowledge. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 18, 157–168.
Perfect, T. J., & Harris, L. J. (2003). Adult age differences in unconscious transference: Source confusion or identity blending? Memory & Cognition 31(4): 570-580.
Eyewitnesses are known often to falsely identify a familiar but innocent bystander when asked to pick out a perpetrator from a lineup. Such unconscious transference errors have been attributed to either identity confusions at encoding or source retrieval errors. Three experiments contrasted younger and older adults in their susceptibility to such misidentifications. Participants saw photographs of perpetrators, then a series of mug shots of innocent bystanders. A week later, they saw lineups containing bystanders (and others containing perpetrators in Experiment 3) and were asked whether any of the perpetrators were present. When younger faces were used as stimuli (Experiments 1 and 3), older adults showed higher rates of transference errors. When older faces were used as stimuli (Experiments 2 and 3), no such age effects in rates of unconscious transference were apparent. In addition, older adults in Experiment 3 showed an own-age bias effect for correct identification of targets. Unconscious transference errors were found to be due to both source retrieval errors and identity confusions, but age-related increases were found only in the latter. mory and general knowledge. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 18, 157–168.
Porter, S., Spencer, L., & Birt, A. R. (2003). Blinded by emotion? Effect of the emotionality of a scene on susceptibility to false memories. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science 35(3): 165-175.
Although distortion is commonly present in memory, the relation between the emotionality of a witnessed scene and susceptibility to mistaken memories is controversial. Participants (N = 90; aged 17-43 years) were recruited for research focusing on "emotional processing" and were not informed that their memories were being investigated. Then, they viewed either a highly positive, neutral, or highly negative emotional scene (e.g., graphic fatal accident) from the International Affective Picture System (e.g., Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 1999). Half of participants were exposed to misleading questions--one of which included a major false suggestion (i.e., large animal in the scene). An hour later all participants were asked to recall the scene and asked 10 direct questions, five of which related to the misinformation provided earlier. Overall, misleading questions impaired recall accuracy by 37%. Further, negative emotion increased susceptibility to false memories for the major misinformation. Whereas 0% of nonmisled participants in any condition recalled seeing the major false detail, misled participants in the negative condition recalled seeing the major false detail more often (80%) than those in the positive (40%) and neutral (40%) conditions.
Pozzulo, J. D., & Warren, K. L. (2003). Descriptions and identifications of strangers by youth and adult eyewitnesses. Journal of Applied Psychology 88(2): 315-323.
Two studies varying target gender and mode of target exposure were conducted to compare the quantity, nature, and accuracy of free recall person descriptions provided by youths and adults. In addition, the relation among age, identification accuracy, and number of descriptors reported was considered. Youths (10-14 years) reported fewer descriptors than adults. Exterior facial descriptors (e.g., hair items) were predominant and accurately reported by youths and adults. Accuracy was consistently problematic for youths when reporting body descriptors (e.g., height, weight) and interior facial features. Youths reported a similar number of descriptors when making accurate versus inaccurate identification decisions. This pattern also was consistent for adults. With target-absent lineups, the difference in the number of descriptors reported between adults and youths was greater when making a false positive versus correct rejection.
Pryke, S., Lindsay, R. C. L., Dysart, J. E., & Dupuis, P. (2004). Multiple Independent Identification Decisions: A Method of Calibrating Eyewitness Identifications. Journal of Applied Psychology 89(1): 73-84.
Two experiments (N = 147 and N = 90) explored the use of multiple independent lineups to identify a target seen live. In Experiment 1, simultaneous face, body, and sequential voice lineups were used. In Experiment 2, sequential face, body, voice, and clothing lineups were used. Both studies demonstrated that multiple identifications (by the same witness) from independent lineups of different features are highly diagnostic of suspect guilt (G. L. Wells & R. C. L. Lindsay, 1980). The number of suspect and foil selections from multiple independent lineups provides a powerful method of calibrating the accuracy of eyewitness identification. Implications for use of current methods are discussed.
Roper, R., & Shewan, D. (2002). Compliance and eyewitness testimony: Do eyewitnesses comply with misleading 'expert pressure' during investigative interviewing? Legal & Criminological Psychology 7(2): 155-163.
This study examined how simple procedures can lead eyewitnesses to behave in a manner compliant to those held in authority. It was hypothesized that eyewitnesses will alter their responses to questions if they think that an authority figure (in this case the experimenter) sees them as unhelpful and/or unobservant. The experiment had a repeated measures design in which a participant's eyewitness ability was measured before and after being labelled a 'good' or 'poor' eyewitness. Participants watched a short video clip and were then asked specific questions regarding what they had just witnessed. After watching a second similar video, participants were labelled as either 'good' or 'poor' eyewitnesses. Forty undergraduate university students (aged 18-31 yrs) took part in the study. Results confirmed that those participants who had received a negative label (''poor' eyewitness) altered their original responses and submitted to leading questions, whereas those who had received a positive label ('good' eyewitness) actually improved their eyewitness observation scores. Results suggest that a simple manipulation by a figure perceived to be in authority can alter the responses of eyewitnesses.
Steblay, N. M., Dysart, J. E., Fulero, S., & Lindsay, R. C. L. (2002). Erratum. Law & Human Behavior 26(4): 467.
Reports an error in the original article by N. M. Steblay et al (Law and Human Behavior, 2001 [Oct], Vol 25[5], 459-473. On page 466, two entries on Table 4 are misreported and should read as follows: Verbal description Yes -.12(10) No -.17(11). (The following abstract of this article originally appeared in record in record 2001-05316-002.) Most police lineups use a simultaneous presentation technique in which eyewitnesses view all lineup members at the same time. R. C. Lindsay and G. L. Wells (see record 1985-30824-001) devised an alternative procedure, the sequential lineup, in which witnesses view one lineup member at a time and decide whether or not that person is the perpetrator prior to viewing the next lineup member The present work uses the technique of meta-analysis to compare the accuracy rates of these presentation styles. 23 papers were located (9 published and 14 unpublished), providing 30 tests of the hypothesis and including 4,145 participants. Results show that identification of perpetrators from target-present lineups occurs at a higher rate from simultaneous than from sequential lineups, However, this difference largely disappears when moderator variables approximating real world conditions are considered.
Valentine, T., Pickering, A., & Darling, S. (2003). Characteristics of eyewitness identification that predict the outcome of real lineups. Applied Cognitive Psychology 17(8): 969-993.
Data were analysed from 640 attempts by eyewitnesses to identify the alleged culprit in 314 lineups organized by the Metropolitan Police in London. Characteristics of the witness, the suspect, the witness's opportunity to view the culprit, the crime and the lineup were recorded. Data analysis, using mixed effects multinomial logistic regression, revealed that the suspect was more likely to be identified if the witness is younger than 30, the suspect is a White European (rather than African-Caribbean), the witness gave a detailed description, viewed the culprit for over a minute and made a fast decision at the lineup. None of the explanatory variables were significantly associated with a mistaken identification of a foil. No independent, statistically reliable effects of weapon focus, cross-race identification, or of the delay before the identification attempt were observed.
Wagstaff, G. F., MacVeigh, J., Boston, R., Scott, L., Brunas-Wagstaff, J., & Cole, J. (2003). Can laboratory findings on eyewitness testimony be generalized to the real world? An archival analysis of the influence of violence, weapon presence, and age on eyewitness accuracy. Journal of Psychology 137(1): 17-28.
The authors conducted 2 studies to assess the effects of levels of violence, the presence of a weapon, and the age of the witness on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony in real-life crime situations. Descriptions of offenders were taken from eyewitnesses' statements obtained by the police and were compared with the actual details of the same offenders obtained on arrest. Data in Study 1 were taken from 62 victim and 8 nonvictim witnesses for crimes including robbery, rape, and assault. Data in Study 2 were taken from the statements of 48 females (aged 8-92 yrs) who had been victims of rape, attempted rape, or indecent assault. The results show that eyewitnesses tended to recall the offenders' hairstyle and hair color most accurately. None of the effects for the level of violence, the presence of a weapon, or age approached statistical significance, with the exception that, in the 1st study, accuracy in describing hair color was better when associated with high levels of violence and in cases of rape. It is argued that caution must be exercised in generalizing from laboratory studies of eyewitness testimony to actual crime situations.
Weber, N., & Brewer, N. (2003). The effect of judgment type and confidence
scale on confidence-accuracy calibration in face recognition. Journal of Applied
Psychology 88(3): 490-499.
Confidence-accuracy calibration was examined for both absolute (recognizing
single faces as old or new) and relative (selecting which of pairs of faces is
old) judgments, using both full- (0%-100%) and half-range (50%-100%) confidence
scales. The half-range confidence scale demonstrated superior calibration to the
full-range scale, for which a confidence-accuracy association was evident only
for the upper half (i.e., 50%-100%) of the scale. Good calibration was observed
for the absolute judgment conditions, but the relative judgment conditions
evidenced marked underconfidence. Also, in the absolute judgment conditions,
good calibration for positive recognition decisions and poorer calibration for
negative decisions was observed. These results are discussed in the context of
theories of confidence and accuracy in face recognition memory and also of
eyewitness identification research.
Wells, G. L., Olson, E. A., & Charman, S. D. (2002). The confidence of eyewitnesses in their identifications from lineups. Current Directions in Psychological Science 11(5): 151-154.
The confidence that eyewitnesses express in their lineup identifications of criminal suspects has a large impact on criminal proceedings. Many convictions of innocent people can be attributed in large part to confident but mistaken eyewitnesses. Although reasonable correlations between confidence and accuracy can be obtained under certain conditions, confidence is governed by some factors that are unrelated to accuracy. An understanding of these confidence factors helps establish the conditions under which confidence and accuracy are related and leads to important practical recommendations for criminal justice proceedings.
Wells, G. L., Olson, E. A., & Charman, S. D. (2003). Distorted retrospective eyewitness reports as functions of feedback and delay. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied 9(1): 42-52.
Participant-witnesses viewed a crime video and attempted to identify the culprit from a culprit-absent lineup. The 253 mistaken-identification eyewitnesses were randomly given confirming, disconfirming, or no feedback regarding their identifications. Feedback was immediate or delayed 48 hr, and measures were immediate or delayed 48 hr. Confirming, but not disconfirming, feedback led to distortions of eyewitnesses' recalled confidence, amount of attention paid during witnessing, goodness of view, ability to make out facial details, length of time to identification, and other measures related to the witnessing experience. Unexpectedly, neither delaying the measures nor delaying feedback for 48 hr moderated these effects. The results underscore the need for double-blind lineups and neutral assessments of eyewitnesses' certainty and other judgments prior to feedback.
Wickham, L. H. V., & Morris, P.
E. (2003). Attractiveness, distinctiveness, and recognition of faces: Attractive
faces can be typical or distinctive but are not better recognized. American
Journal of Psychology 116(3): 455-468.
The debate surrounding the relationship between facial attractiveness and
distinctiveness appears to arise from different definitions of distinctiveness.
In our study unfamiliar faces were rated for attractiveness, age, and
distinctiveness. Two measures of distinctiveness were used: ease of spotting the
face in a crowd (traditional) and deviation from an average face (deviation).
Recognition was not predicted by attractiveness. The traditional ratings
produced a complex relationship with attractiveness, where unattractive faces
were distinctive, but attractive faces were rated at all levels of
distinctiveness. When the effects of age were partialled out, attractiveness no
longer predicted traditional distinctiveness. However, deviation ratings
produced a strong negative correlation with attractiveness, even when the
effects of age were removed.
Wise, R. A. & Safer, M. A. (2004). What US Judges Know and Believe About Eyewitness Testimony. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 18, 427–443.
In a survey, 160 US judges
indicated their knowledge and beliefs about eyewitness testimony. Although
correct on some issues, judges were often wrong on important issues such as
whether at trial eyewitness confidence is a good indicator of eyewitness
accuracy, and if jurors can distinguish accurate from inaccurate witnesses.
Increased knowledge was associated with: a willingness to permit legal
safeguards, including expert testimony at trial; a belief that jurors have
limited
knowledge of eyewitness factors; a reluctance to convict defendants solely from
eyewitness testimony; a more accurate estimate of the extent to which wrongful
convictions result from eyewitness error; and a belief that judges need more
eyewitness training. Additional training about factors and procedures that
affect eyewitness accuracy may help judges reduce the number of wrongful
convictions.
Wright, D. B., Boyd, C. E., & Tredoux, C. G. (2003). Inter-racial contact
and the own-race bias for face recognition in South Africa and England. Applied
Cognitive Psychology 17(3): 365-373.
Own-race bias, where people are more accurate recognizing faces of people from
their own race than other races, can lead to misidentification and, in some
cases, innocent people being convicted. This bias was explored in South Africa
and England, using Black and White participants. People were shown several
photographs of Black and White faces and were later asked if they had seen these
faces (and several fillers). In addition, participants were given a
questionnaire about inter-racial contact. Cross-race identification accuracy for
Black participants was positively correlated with self-reported inter-racial
contact. The confidence-accuracy relationship was strongest when making own-race
judgements.
Wright, D. B., & Sladden, B. (2003). An own gender bias and the importance
of hair in face recognition. Acta Psychologica 114(1): 101-114.
There is a large literature on the own race bias, the finding that people are
better at recognizing faces of people from their own race. Here, in a study of
20 male and 20 female students, an own gender bias is shown: Males are better at
identifying male faces than female faces and females are better at identifying
female faces than male faces. Encoding a person's hair is shown to account for
approximately half of the own gender bias when measured using hit and false
alarm rates. Remember/know judgements and confidence measures are taken.
Encoding a person's hair is critical for having a "remember" recollective
experience. Parallels with the own race bias and implications for eyewitness
testimony are discussed.
Wright, D. B., & Stroud, J. N. (2002). Age differences in lineup
identification accuracy: People are better with their own age. Law & Human
Behavior 26(6): 641-654.
Previous research has reported that young adults are better at eyewitness face
recognition than are older adults. However, these studies have used young adults
as culprits and fillers. We explore how the relative ages of the witness and the
culprit influence eyewitness accuracy in 2 experiments. In the first experiment,
young (18-25 years old) and older (35-55 years old) adults each saw 4 crime
videos. In 2 the culprit was a young adult and in 2 the culprit was an older
adult. Participants were more accurate at identifying the culprit when viewing
culprit present lineups comprising people of their own age: an "own age bias"
analogous to the own race bias. In the 2nd experiment, using a similar
procedure, young (18-33 years old) and older (40-55 years old) adults viewed
both culprit present and culprit absent lineups. The results of the first
experiment were replicated for the culprit present lineups. However, no own age
bias was found for the culprit absent lineups. Implications for police
procedures dealing with cross-generation identifications are discussed.