Postidentification feedback affects subsequent eyewitness identification performance.

Eyewitnesses sometimes view more than one lineup during an investigation. We investigated the effects of postidentification feedback following one lineup on responses to a second lineup. Witnesses (N = 621) viewed a mock crime and, later, attempted to identify the culprit from an initial (target-absent) lineup and a second (target-present or target-absent) lineup. Prior to viewing the second lineup, some witnesses received accurate feedback stating that the initial lineup did not contain the culprit. A compound-decision, signal detection approach allowed the effects of feedback on identification responses to be described in terms of differences in discriminability and response bias. For witnesses who made an incorrect foil identification from the initial lineup, feedback (vs. no feedback) was associated with poorer discriminability on the second test. For witnesses who correctly rejected the initial lineup, feedback (vs. no feedback) was associated with greater discriminability on the second test. Only witnesses who received feedback after an initial correct rejection performed at a level comparable with a single-lineup control group, suggesting that an initial identification test can impair, but not enhance, performance on a second test involving the same culprit. From a theoretical perspective, the results are consistent with the idea that the way people use memorial information when making memory decisions is flexible. Analyses of preidentification confidence ratings, obtained in a follow-up study (N = 133), suggested that the effects of feedback on identification performance may have operated via differences in witnesses' metacognitive beliefs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Can people detect eyewitness-identification accuracy within and across situations?

Thefts were staged 108 times for as many witnesses who were subsequently given a photo lineup for identifying the thief. The thefts were staged under conditions designed to yield low (33%), moderate (50%), or high (74%) proportions of correct identifications of the thief. Corroborating past research, the relationship between witnesses' identification accuracy and witnesses' confidence was negligible within conditions. There was no evidence that the confidence–accuracy relationship changed across conditions or that witness confidence changed across theft conditions. A representative sample of 48 witnesses (8 accurate-identification and 8 false-identification witnesses from each of the 3 theft conditions) was cross-examined. 96 undergraduates viewing the cross-examinations showed no ability to detect accurate- from false-identification witnesses within conditions as measured by Ss' belief of witnesses. Although Ss changed their rate of belief of witnesses as a function of the theft conditions (62, 66, and 77%, respectively), the rate at which Ss discounted witnesses' testimony was insufficient across conditions. Ss were especially overbelieving of witnesses when the rate of witness accuracy in that condition was low. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

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. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Improving the identification accuracy of senior witnesses: Do prelineup questions and sequential testing help?

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. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of Administrator-Witness Contact on Eyewitness Identification Accuracy.

Concern that lineup administrators can influence eyewitness identifications has led researchers to suggest implementing double-blind testing, an idea that police resist. Using a typical eyewitness paradigm (video event followed by photographic identification test), the present study demonstrated that an alternative technique, minimizing the level of contact between lineup administrators and witnesses, could reduce false identifications without reducing hits. Specifically, witnesses were more likely to make decisions consistent with lineup administrator expectations when the level of contact between the administrator and the witness was high than when it was low. These results are explained within the experimenter expectancy framework. Implications for applied settings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Response biases in lineups and showups.

The showup, or presentation of a single suspect to an eyewitness, is widely believed to be a more biased and suggestive identification procedure than the lineup even though there has been no empirical work on this issue. Results suggest, however, that witnesses at a lineup are less likely to say "not there" than are witnesses at a showup. This tendency is seen in both live and photographic identification procedures, in both laboratory studies and real-world identifications. Showups in the lab resulted in no more mistaken identifications than lineups. Results also suggest that a showup is not equivalent to a poor lineup (i.e., a lineup with a functional size of 1). It is hypothesized that a showup leads to an absolute judgment, whereas a lineup leads to a relative judgment, and that the police pressures on witnesses are unlikely to be any greater for showup than for lineup identifications. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The tractability of eyewitness confidence and its implications for triers of fact.

A theft staged for 80 unsuspecting undergraduate eyewitnesses was followed by a picture lineup that did or did not contain the thief. In an attempt to see if eyewitness confidence is tractable after the identification, half of the eyewitnesses who identified the thief (accurate witnesses) and half who identified an innocent suspect (inaccurate witnesses) were briefed by a "prosecutor" who suggested they rehearse answers to potential questions that would be asked under cross-examination. Cross-examinations of 10 accurate briefed, 10 accurate nonbriefed, 9 inaccurate briefed, and 9 inaccurate nonbriefed witnesses were viewed by 152 "jurors" in groups of 4 Ss. Briefed eyewitnesses rated themselves as more confident that they had identified the thief than did nonbriefed witnesses. This increase was primarily due to inaccurate eyewitnesses' increasing their confidence, and the briefing manipulation served to eliminate the confidence–accuracy relationship. Jurors were significantly more likely to vote guilty in conditions in which the eyewitness had been briefed than in the nonbriefed conditions. It is argued that briefing eyewitnesses, although legal, simply serves to increase the eyewitnesses' confidence in their memory, not the accuracy of memory. (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of Postidentification Feedback on Eyewitness Identification and Nonidentification Confidence.

Two experiments investigated new dimensions of the effect of confirming feedback on eyewitness identification confidence using target-absent and target-present lineups and (previously unused) unbiased witness instructions (i.e., "offender not present" option highlighted). In Experiment 1, participants viewed a crime video and were later asked to try to identify the thief from an 8-person target-absent photo array. Feedback inflated witness confidence for both mistaken identifications and correct lineup rejections. With target-present lineups in Experiment 2, feedback inflated confidence for correct and mistaken identifications and lineup rejections. Although feedback had no influence on the confidence-accuracy correlation, it produced clear overconfidence. Confidence inflation varied with the confidence measure reference point (i.e., retrospective vs. current confidence) and identification response latency. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Eyewitness identification accuracy, confidence, and decision times in simultaneous and sequential lineups.

Eyewitness identification accuracy was investigated in simultaneous and sequential lineups. 72 Ss watched a film of a robbery in a public park under incidental learning conditions and returned to the laboratory the following day to answer questions about the film. Sequential lineup procedures led to significantly fewer false identifications than the simultaneous lineup mode, with comparable performance in detecting the perpetrator in target-present conditions. Alternative methods for analyzing confidence and decision times in sequential lineups are presented which allow for more fine-grained analyses of the relationships between accuracy, confidence, and decision times both between and within Ss. Distinguishing between choosers and nonchoosers, these analyses show the predictive utility of decision times and confidence as assessment variables. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

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. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Fast and confident: Postdicting eyewitness identification accuracy in a field study.

The combined postdictive value of postdecision confidence, decision time, and Remember-Know-Familiar (RKF) judgments as markers of identification accuracy was evaluated with 10 targets and 720 participants. In a pedestrian area, passers-by were asked for directions. Identifications were made from target-absent or target-present lineups. Fast (optimum time boundary at 6 seconds) and confident (optimum confidence boundary at 90%) witnesses were highly accurate, slow and nonconfident witnesses highly inaccurate. Although this combination of postdictors was clearly superior to using either postdictor by itself these combinations refer only to a subsample of choosers. Know answers were associated with higher identification performance than Familiar answers, with no difference between Remember and Know answers. The results of participants' post hoc decision time estimates paralleled those with measured decision times. To explore decision strategies of nonchoosers, three subgroups were formed according to their reasons given for rejecting the lineup. Nonchoosers indicating that the target had simply been absent made faster and more confident decisions than nonchoosers stating lack of confidence or lack of memory. There were no significant differences with regard to identification performance across nonchooser groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Guided memory in eyewitness identification.

72 witnesses (college students) of staged vandalism either subsequently viewed no lineup (NL) or viewed lineups in which the vandal was present (VP) or absent (VA). Ss were asked 5 mo later to view 5 simultaneously displayed lineup photographs. Half the Ss in each lineup condition group were asked whether the vandal's photograph was present and, if so, to identify it; the other half of the Ss were asked to do the same after an interview guiding recollection of the incident, the vandal, and the S's reactions. Recognition accuracy was greater for Ss who underwent guided memory interviews (60% vs 40%). The VP Ss were more often accurate and more confident than were NL or VA Ss. Thus, the guided memory procedure enhanced the accuracy of identification after a moderate delay without biasing the witnesses' recollections about the offender. (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Can eyewitnesses correct for external influences on their lineup identifications? The actual/counterfactual assessment paradigm.

Real-world eyewitnesses are often asked whether their lineup responses were affected by various external influences, but it is unknown whether they can accurately answer these types of questions. The witness-report-of-influence mental-correction model is proposed to explain witnesses' reports of influence. Two experiments used a new paradigm (the actual/counterfactual paradigm) to examine eyewitnesses' abilities to report accurately on the influence of lineup manipulations. Eyewitnesses were administered either confirming feedback or no feedback (Experiment 1, n = 103), or a cautionary instruction or no cautionary instruction (Experiment 2, n = 114). Eyewitnesses then gave actual responses (retrospective confidence, view, and attention measures in Experiment 1; identification decision in Experiment 2) as well as counterfactual responses stating how they would have responded in the alternative condition. Results across both studies showed an asymmetric estimation of influence pattern: Eyewitnesses who received an influencing manipulation estimated significantly less of a change in their responses than eyewitnesses who did not receive an influencing manipulation. A 48-hr delay between actual and counterfactual responses did not moderate any effects. Results are explained by witnesses' implicit theories of influence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Eyewitness identification: Psychological research and legal policy on lineups.

The risk of eyewitnesses making false identifications is influenced by the methods used to construct and conduct lineups. The legal system could impose 4 simple rules to reduce false identifications: (a) Eyewitnesses should be informed that the culprit might not be in the lineup, (b) the suspect should not stand out in the lineup, (c) lineups should be administered by someone who does not know who the suspect is, and (d) witnesses should be asked how certain they are of their choice before other information contaminates their judgment. The U.S. Supreme Court has acknowledged the dangers of mistaken identification but has not used exclusionary rules to control unnecessary risk. Judicial rulings should focus on risky lineup methods and impose standards to eliminate potential justice system contributions to false identification. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Identification accuracy of children versus adults: a meta-analysis

Identification accuracy of children and adults was examined in a meta-analysis. Preschoolers (M = 4 years) were less likely than adults to make correct identifications. Children over the age of 5 did not differ significantly from adults with regard to correct identification rate. Children of all ages examined were less likely than adults to correctly reject a target-absent lineup. Even adolescents (M = 12-13 years) did not reach an adult rate of correct rejection. Compared to simultaneous lineup presentation, sequential lineups increased the child-adult gap for correct rejections. Providing child witnesses with identification practice or training did not increase their correct rejection rates. Suggestions for children's inability to correctly reject target-absent lineups are discussed. Future directions for identification research are presented.     

Automaticity and eyewitness accuracy: A 10- to 12-second rule for distinguishing accurate from inaccurate positive identifications.

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. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The "general acceptance" of psychological research on eyewitness testimony: A survey of the experts.

63 experts on eyewitness testimony were surveyed about their courtroom experiences and opinions on various issues. There was a strong consensus indicated by an agreement rate of at least 80% that the data on the following topics are reliable enough to present in court: the wording of questions, lineup instructions, misleading postevent information, the accuracy–confidence correlation, attitudes and expectations, exposure time, unconscious transference, showups, and the forgetting curve. Over 70% of the experts also endorsed lineup fairness, the cross-race identification bias among White witnesses, and the tendency to overestimate the duration of events. Although most eyewitness experts who have testified have done so on behalf of criminal defendants, they were just as likely to consent for the prosecution as for the defense; moreover, they were more likely to agree to testify in civil cases than in criminal. Concerning their role in court, most respondents indicated that their main objective is to educate the jury, and that juries are more competent with the aid of experts than without. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

How do triers of fact infer the accuracy of eyewitness identifications? Using memory for peripheral detail can be misleading.

107 undergraduate eyewitnesses to a staged theft made identifications from a photo spread and then responded to 11 questions that measured their memory for peripheral details. Results indicate that witnesses who accurately identified the thief (n?=?57) averaged fewer correct answers on the peripheral details test than did eyewitnesses who identified an innocent person (n?=?32). The remaining witnesses (n?=?18) made no identification. 94 undergraduates acting as jurors viewed cross-examinations of 47 accurate and 24 inaccurate eyewitnesses and indicated their belief that the witness had or had not properly identified the thief. The cross-examination that scrutinized and documented the witnesses' memory for trivial details lowered Ss' belief of the eyewitnesses' identification accuracy. This discrediting effect was stronger for accurate than for inaccurate eyewitnesses. It is argued that jurors inappropriately assumed a positive correlation between accuracy in identifying the thief and memory for peripheral details. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Calibration and diagnosticity of confidence in eyewitness identification: Comments on what can be inferred from the low confidence–accuracy correlation.

The relationship between eyewitness confidence and accuracy as measured by the ψ point-biserial correlation has been described as poor or even nonexistent in the literature on lineup identifications. In this article, 3 arguments are made. First, a low point-biserial correlation is compatible with good or even perfect calibration (realism) of confidence, and the correlation provides no information about whether witnesses over- or underestimate the probability of a correct identification. Second, point-biserial correlations provide almost no information about whether confidence is diagnostic in the sense that it should be taken into account by the court when evaluating eyewitness identifications. Third, useful information is provided by calibration analysis and computation of diagnosticity indices. These arguments are illustrated with data from an experiment with photo-confrontations that rely on photo material used by the Swedish Police and where foils were selected by experienced police officers in the manner of routine investigations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)