Lineup administrator influences on eyewitness identification decisions.

The present research examines how a lineup administrator may influence eyewitness identification decisions through different forms of influence, after providing the witness with standard, unbiased instructions. Participant-witnesses viewed a staged crime and were later shown a target-present or target-absent lineup. The lineup administrators either remained silent while the witness examined the lineup, made ostensibly cautionary statements to the witness, or prompted the witness to identify the person in the lineup who seemed most similar to the perpetrator. These two forms of influence, denoted as subtle-influence and similarity-influence conditions, led to different patterns of identification results. Results for the similarity-influence condition were generally consistent with criterion shift and relative judgment models of eyewitness decision making. Results for the subtle-influence condition, however, cannot be explained by alterations in the decision rule. A weighted matching model is outlined to explain results from the subtle-influence condition. Witnesses seemed generally unaware of the attempts by the lineup administrator to influence their decision, although some noted it, and the probative value of suspect identifications was lower for those who did note it. Implications for theory and policy are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Improving the reliability of eyewitness identification: Putting context into context.

We examined the effects of context reinstatement procedures on eyewitness identification accuracy. Subjects were 290 undergraduates who viewed a videotaped reenactment of a liquor store robbery and, in a later session, attempted to identify the robber from a lineup parade. Two types of context reinstatement procedures were examined together with eight encoding, storage, and retrieval variables manipulated within the stimulus videotape and the lineup procedures. Disguise of the robber impaired identification accuracy (pppp?=?.01), and exposure to mug shots (p?=?.05; although in a manner contrary to our expectation). These interactions indicated that lineup context cues improved identification accuracy in the high-similarity, 2-week retention interval, and no mug-shots conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Improving eyewitness identifications from lineups: Simultaneous versus sequential lineup presentation.

Investigated the effectiveness of sequential lineup presentation as a means of reducing false identifications with little or no loss in accurate identifications. A crime was staged for 240 unsuspecting eyewitnesses (undergraduates) either individually or in pairs. One-fourth of the Ss attempted identifications in each of 4 lineup conditions: 6 pictures were presented either simultaneously, as used in traditional procedures, or sequentially, in which yes/no judgments were made for each picture; each procedure either contained the photograph of the criminal–confederate or a picture of a similar looking replacement. Results indicate that sequential lineup presentation significantly reduced false identifications but did not significantly influence correct identifications when compared with a simultaneous procedure. It is concluded that sequential presentation of lineups can reduce false identifications of innocent suspects by reducing eyewitnesses' reliance on relative-judgment processes. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Eyewitness identification: Lineup instructions and the absence of the offender.

100 college student eyewitnesses of a staged vandalism received varying lineup instructions under conditions in which the offender was present or absent. Biased instructions implied that Ss were to choose someone, whereas unbiased instructions provided a "no choice" option. Ss viewed corporeal lineups on 1 of 3 evenings following the vandalism. A high rate of choosing occurred under biased instructions, and the lowest rate occurred under unbiased instructions with the vandal absent. Identification errors were highest under biased instructions with the vandal absent. With the vandal present under biased instructions all errors were false identifications, whereas under unbiased instructions all errors were false rejections of the lineup. Confidence ratings were obtained following Ss' identification decision. Ss making a choice had high confidence scores, whereas those rejecting the lineup had low confidence scores. Unbiased instructions reduced choosing and false identifications without decreasing correct identifications. Both identifications and nonidentifications had greater "diagnosticity" under unbiased than under biased instructions. (27 ref) (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)     

Age and schematic differences in the reliability of eyewitness testimony.

Examined the reliability of eyewitness testimony for the crime of shoplifting as a function of age, prior knowledge/expectations, and type of memory test. Study 1, with 100 10-yr-olds, 100 undergraduates, and 65 older adults (mean age 72.3 yrs), was designed to empirically establish Ss' expectations for common and unusual occurrences in shoplifting. Results from a rating task indicate that Ss had expectations for common and unusual occurrences of objects and actions but not person characteristics. In Study 2, 32 10-yr-olds, 32 undergraduates, and 29 older adults (mean age 67.6 yrs) viewed videotapes of staged shopliftings incorporating high and low probability-of-occurrence actions and objects. Incidental memory was tested 1 wk later under recall and recognition test instructions. All Ss' reports were more complete, but less accurate, for high than low probability-of-occurrence information. Children's reports were as complete as but less accurate than younger adults'. Older adults' reports were less complete than but as accurate as college students'. Age differences were greatest for completeness of recall measures. Implications for theories of memory development and for the use of eyewitness testimony in legal situations are discussed. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Victimization, self-monitoring, and eyewitness identification.

38 undergraduate low self-monitors and 42 undergraduate high self-monitors (as determined by a scale of self-monitoring of expressive behavior) witnessed in small groups a staged crime of either their own wristwatches or a laboratory calculator. Campus police detectives took individual witness statements as if a real crime had occurred, and using biased or unbiased instructions, police administered a suspect-present photospread. Results show that victim witnesses who had been given biased instructions gave the least accurate identifications and that high self-monitoring Ss were least likely to reject the lineup when instructions were biased. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

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)     

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. (29 ref) (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)     

Forensically relevant moderators of the relation between eyewitness identification accuracy and confidence.

Meta-analyses of 9 studies were conducted that all assess the association between pre-lineup confidence and identification accuracy; the association between post-lineup confidence produces a stronger correlation with identification accuracy than does pre-lineup confidence. In 5 of these studies the difference between correlations is statistically significant. Furthermore, correlations between pre-lineup confidence and accuracy were trivial in magnitude, ranging from .00 to .20. The conclusion is drawn that a witness's confidence in his or her ability to make an identification should not be given much weight in determining whether or not to have the witness attempt an identification. Also, pre-lineup confidence should not be used to evaluate the accuracy of an identification. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Accuracy, confidence, and juror perceptions in eyewitness identification.

Undergraduates of both sexes individually witnessed the staged theft of a calculator. The 127 witnesses were then given the opportunity to identify the thief from a 6-person picture array; from this sample, 24 accurate-identification witnesses and 18 inaccurate-identification witnesses were cross-examined with either leading or nonleading questions. 201 undergraduates who served as jurors were unable to distinguish accurate from inaccurate witnesses across the 42 cross-examination sessions. However, jurors in the leading-questions conditions were significantly more likely to believe accurate than inaccurate witnesses, whereas the reverse effect held for nonleading questions. Jurors' attributions of witness confidence were unrelated to witness accuracy, even though these attributions accounted for 50% of the variance in jurors' decisions to believe witnesses. The poor accuracy/confidence relationship among witnesses is discussed in relation to the research on probability calibration. (11 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

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

Effects of interpolated mugshot exposure on accuracy of eyewitness identification.

Four groups of 15 Ss (ages 20–65 yrs) observed a videotape of 3 men whom they were later asked to identify in a recognition test. Results demonstrate significant effects on confidence ratings of both target and nontarget stimuli through the interpolation of irrelevant face stimuli, but the pattern of results does not lend itself to a straightforward interpretation in terms of interference. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Crime seriousness as a determinant of accuracy in eyewitness identification .

65 university students witnessed a staged theft in which either an expensive object (high seriousness) or an inexpensive object (low seriousness) was stolen, and Ss either had prior knowledge of the object's value or learned of its value only after the theft. When witnesses had prior knowledge of the object's value, accurate identification of the thief was more likely when the theft was of high rather than of low seriousness. When knowledge of the crime's seriousness was gained after the theft, seriousness did not affect identification accuracy. Results suggest that the effect of perceived seriousness on accuracy is mediated by processes that operate during rather than after the viewing interval, processes such as selective attention and encoding. The study also found that certainty of choice in the identification task was unrelated to accuracy of choice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of eyewitness identification evidence in felony case dispositions.

We addressed the question of whether felony case dispositions are associated with eyewitness identification evidence. Toward this end, 725 felony cases (rape, robbery, and assault) were randomly sampled from the archives of a District Attorney's Office in a large south-western city in the United States. A positive identification was present more often in accepted compared to rejected cases, although the association was significant in acquaintance cases (i.e., cases in which one or more of the eyewitnesses was familiar with the defendant), not stranger cases. Additionally, suspect and crime incident factors were associated with case issuing outcomes to a larger extent than eyewitness identification evidence. Analyses further indicated that eyewitness identification evidence was stronger in prosecuted compared to rejected cases in which eyewitness testimony was the sole evidence against the defendant. Neither the presence of multiple identifications nor nonidentifications of the suspect varied across issuing outcomes. The findings are discussed in relation to additional research that is needed at the police and prosecution stages to advance public policy development with respect to the evaluation of eyewitness identification evidence by prosecutors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

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

The damaging effect of confirming feedback on the relation between eyewitness certainty and identification accuracy.

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

Lineup and photo spread procedures: Issues concerning policy recommendations.

This article examines the recommended changes to lineup reforms outlined by eyewitness researchers and the impact of these reforms on public policy as reflected in national guidelines for police identification procedures (Technical Working Group for Eyewitness Evidence, 1999). The limitations of these reforms are discussed. Alternative "best practices" for social science researchers, as well as for police, are proposed to minimize false-positive lineup selections and, consequently, convictions of innocent persons. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)