The Elusive Effects of Alcohol Intoxication on Visual Attention and Eyewitness Memory

Alcohol is a contributing factor in many crimes, yet little is known of its effects on eyewitness memory and face identification. Some authors suggest that intoxication impairs attention and memory, particularly for peripheral scene information, but the data supporting this claim are limited. The present study therefore sought to determine whether (i) intoxicated participants spend less time fixating on peripheral regions of crime images than sober counterparts, (ii) whether less information is recognised from image regions receiving fewer gaze fixations and (iii) whether intoxicated participants are less able to identify the perpetrator of a crime than sober participants. Contrary to expectations, participants' ability to explore and subsequently recognise the contents of the stimulus scenes was unaffected by alcohol, suggesting that the relationship between intoxication, attention and eyewitness memory requires closer scrutiny. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Influence of Perpetrator Exposure Time and Weapon Presence/Timing on Eyewitness Confidence and Accuracy

Crimes can occur in a matter of seconds, with little time available for an eyewitness to encode a perpetrator's face. The presence of a weapon can further exacerbate this situation. Few studies have featured mock crimes of short duration, especially with a weapon manipulation. We conducted an experiment to investigate the impact of weapon presence and short perpetrator exposure times (3 vs. 10 seconds) on eyewitness confidence and accuracy. We found that recall concerning the perpetrator was worse when a weapon was present, replicating the weapon focus effect. However, there was no effect on eyewitness identification accuracy. Calibration analyses revealed that all conditions produced a strong confidence–accuracy relationship. Confidence–accuracy characteristic curves illustrated almost perfect accuracy for suspect identifications at the highest levels of confidence. We conclude that weapon presence during a brief crime does not necessarily result in negative consequences for either eyewitness identification accuracy or the confidence–accuracy relationship. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Identification accuracy for single‐ and double‐perpetrator crimes: Does accomplice gender matter?

There is an important mismatch between empirical research on the accuracy of eyewitness identification and the real world of criminal investigation. Most research models single‐perpetrator crimes, but in the real world, most crimes involve multiple perpetrators. This study examined how the number of perpetrators affects eyewitness identification by manipulating the gender of accomplices. Observers viewed a video of a staged crime. The crime was committed by a male or female perpetrator, who was presented alone or with an accomplice of the same or the opposite gender. The observers were then asked to identify the perpetrators from target‐present or target‐absent line‐ups. The results revealed a double‐perpetrator disadvantage, which was manifested in reduced identification accuracy on target‐present line‐ups. Importantly, however, the gender of the perpetrator or the accomplice had no effect on this disadvantage. This double‐perpetrator disadvantage is attributed to the need to divide attention between two concurrent people, compared to single‐culprit crimes, rather than an impairment of visual encoding processes. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

The effect of feedback training on distance estimation in virtual environments

It is often noted that distances are significantly underestimated in computer‐simulated (virtual) environments. Two experiments examine observers' ability to use error corrective feedback to improve the accuracy of judgments of egocentric and exocentric distances. In Experiment 1, observers viewed objects in an immersive virtual environment and estimated their distance through a blindfolded walking task. Different groups received feedback on either egocentric, exocentric or none of these judgments. Receiving feedback improved observers' ability to estimate only those distances for which feedback was provided. These effects persisted for at least 1 week. In Experiment 2, observers estimated egocentric distance by means of both a direct and indirect walking task. Receiving feedback on the direct walking task predominantly improved direct estimates and not indirect estimates. These findings suggest that although feedback training offers a relatively straightforward and immediate way of overcoming problems of distance estimation, its effects are specific to both the type of judgment and the type of response. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Characterizing visual behaviour in a lineup task

Eye tracking was used to monitor participants' visual behaviour while viewing lineups in order to determine whether gaze behaviour predicted decision accuracy. Participants viewed taped crimes followed by simultaneous lineups. Participants (N = 34) viewed 4 target‐present and 4 target‐absent lineups. Decision time, number of fixations and duration of fixations differed for selections vs. non‐selections. Correct and incorrect selections differed only in terms of comparison‐type behaviour involving the selected face. Correct and incorrect non‐selections could be distinguished by decision time, number of fixations and duration of fixations on the target or most‐attended face and comparisons. Implications of visual behaviour for judgment strategy (relative vs. absolute) are discussed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

CCTV Observation: The Effects of Event Type and Instructions on Fixation Behaviour in an Applied Change Blindness Task

Little is known about how observers' scanning strategies affect performance when monitoring events in closed‐circuit television (CCTV) footage. We examined the fixation behaviour of change detectors and non‐detectors monitoring dynamic scenes. One hundred forty‐seven participants observed mock CCTV videos featuring either a mock crime or no crime. Participants were instructed to look for a crime, to look for something unusual or simply to watch the video. In both videos, two of the people depicted switched locations. Eye movements (the number of fixations on the targets and the average length of each fixation on targets) were recorded prior to and during the critical change period. Change detection (24% overall) was unaffected by event type or task instruction. Fixation behaviour differed significantly between the criminal and non‐criminal event conditions. There was no effect of instructions on fixation behaviour. Change detectors fixated for longer on the target directly before the change than did non‐detectors. Although fixation behaviour before change predicted change detection, fixation count and durations during the critical change period did not. These results highlight the potential value of studying fixation behaviour for understanding change blindness during complex, cognitively demanding tasks (e.g. CCTV surveillance). Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Towards an express-diagnostics for level of processing and hazard perception

The analysis of eye movements can provide rich information about driver's attention and the course of behaviour in hazardous situations. We present data from a driving simulation study showing that the switching between preattentive and attentive processing is reflected in visual fixations. For this initial analysis, we considered fixations from the perspective of their duration and the amplitude of related saccades. Since fixation durations may change instantaneously from one fixation to the next, we further selected the temporal vicinity of the emerging hazard for a closer analysis of fixations around this time. With this second type of analysis, the fixations that actually “detect” a critical event can be discovered and their duration measured. Upon detection of an immediate hazard, there is an increase in fixation duration and a corresponding increase in occurrence of attentive fixations on the cost of preattentive ones. This switching from one level of processing to another is recognisable on a short, phasic time scale. We finally discuss attentional conditions where overlooked or not sufficiently processed hazards do not lead to the appropriate breaking reaction on the part of the driver.     

Honor Crimes in the United States and Offenders’ Neutralization Techniques

Honor crimes are violent acts that are experienced among different religions and ethnicities. This type of offense can be justified, either before or after the crime, by the offender’s perceived need to protect honor-based values. This study used Sykes and Matza’s neutralization theory to explain the offender’s justification of honor crimes. We used data from the United States Extremist Crime Database, which has incident, victim, and perpetrator level indicators for the population of honor crimes in the United States (N = 16). Using open source search files for the cases, neutralizations and justifications provided by the offenders are presented.     

Deterrence and Incapacitation: An Interrupted Time‐Series Analysis of California's Three‐Strikes Law1

Using uniform crime statistics, this research investigates the impact of California's three‐strikes law on instrumental, violent, minor, and drug‐related crimes over the first 5 years of the law's implementation. Autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models reveal little immediate impact of the law, but significant effects on instrumental crime over time, suggesting an incapacitation effect. After correcting for autocorrelation distortions, less restrictive multiple regression models that test simultaneously for immediate and gradual intervention effects disclose immediate (deterrent) effects on instrumental and minor crimes and arrests, and long‐term (incapacitation) effects on these and violent crimes as well. Drug‐related crimes appear impervious to the three‐strikes law under any analytic model, suggesting the unresponsiveness of such crimes to increasingly severe legal sanctions.     

Distribution and Correlates of Self-Reported Crimes of Trust

This study examines the distribution and correlates of a special class of property crimes, crimes of trust, using longitudinal and cross sectional self-report data from a national sample. We begin by defining crimes of trust and consider their conceptual relationship to “conventional” property crimes, which we here characterize as crimes of stealth, and to white collar crimes, which are defined in terms of the social status of the perpetrators. Crimes of trust are here defined as property crimes that typically involve deliberate contact with the victim or, where there is more than one victim, with at least one or more victims, in which there is typically more of a focus on concealing the fact that a crime has been committed than on concealing the identity of the perpetrator (as is the case in crimes of stealth), without regard to the socioeconomic status of the perpetrator (thus including but not limited to white collar crimes). The focus here is on crimes of trust committed by individuals (as opposed to corporate crime). We first examine their distribution by sociodemographic characteristics, then examine the correlation of crimes of trust with other types of illegal behavior, using data from the National Youth Survey Family Study, including (1) longitudinal self-report data from a nationally representative panel of individuals who were 11–18 years old in 1976–77 and who were followed through early middle age (ages 36–44) in 2002–2003, plus (2) cross-sectional data on these individuals plus their parents, spouses, and children age 11 and older in 2002–2003 (total age range 11–88). The results suggest that crimes of trust have a different age–crime curve from conventional crimes, and that they are not as strongly correlated with problem substance use, gender, and other socioeconomic indicators as conventional crimes.     

How does crime pay? The differentiation of criminal specialisms by fundamental incentive

Most attempts to determine offence specialisms have not benefited from any formal psychological framework of behavioural differentiation. Bandura's framework (Social foundations of thought and action, 1986) of the fundamental incentives to human action offers an interesting perspective on what might underlie differential patterns of offending. The framework draws attention to the distinction between Material, Power/Status, and Sensory incentives, leading to the hypotheses that crimes which share any one of these incentives will be more likely to be committed by the same person, as revealed through high inter‐correlations, but be less highly correlated with crimes with different fundamental incentives. To test these hypotheses the correlations between 42 offending behaviours as self‐reported by 185 convicted young offenders were examined. A Multidimensional Scaling analysis of the inter‐correlations revealed three distinct styles of offending that could be related to Bandura's Material (Cronbach's α = 0.94), Power/Status (α = 0.90) and Sensory (α = 0.76) incentives. The identification of this psychological basis for the differentiation of criminal styles provides a model for considering offenders' patterns of specialisation which is of value both in clarifying the aetiology of different types of crime and in considering which crimes may be behaviourally equivalent when trying to link them to a common offender or infer offender characteristics from crime scene information. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Effects of Recent Sleep Duration,Sleep Quality,and Current Sleepiness on Eyewitness Memory

This study examined whether three sleep‐related variables (current sleepiness, the duration of the previous night's sleep and the quality of that sleep) were predictors of an eyewitness's ability to remember central and peripheral details from a crime. Participants first completed a self‐report questionnaire assessing their current sleepiness, then watched a video of a bank robbery, next completed a self‐report questionnaire about their previous night's sleep, and then had their memory of the crime tested. It was found that as the eyewitnesses' sleep quality decreased and their sleepiness increased, their ability to accurately recollect peripheral details from the crime was compromised. This is the first demonstration that variations in sleep prior to witnessing a crime, and sleepiness at the time of a crime, can predict eyewitness memory. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A rapid effect of stimulus quality on the durations of individual fixations during reading

We developed a variant of the single fixation replacement paradigm (Yang & McConkie, 2001, 2004) in order to examine the effect of stimulus quality on fixation duration during reading. Subjects' eye movements were monitored while they read passages of text for comprehension. During critical fixations, equal changes to the luminance of the background produced either an increase (Up-Contrast) or a decrease (Down-Contrast) of the contrast of the text. The durations of critical fixations were found to be lengthened in the Down-Contrast but not the Up-Contrast condition. Ex-Gaussian modelling of the distributions of fixation durations showed that the reduction in stimulus quality lengthened the majority of fixations, and a survival analysis estimated the onset of this effect to be approximately 141 ms following fixation onset. Because the stimulus quality of the text during critical fixations could not be predicted or parafoveally previewed prior to foveation, the present effect can be attributed to an immediate effect of stimulus quality on fixation duration.     

Examining the Role of Similarity Coefficients and the Value of Behavioural Themes in Attempts to Link Serial Arson Offences

When relying on crime scene behaviours to link serial crimes, linking accuracy may be influenced by the measure used to assess across‐crime similarity and the types of behaviours included in the analysis. To examine these issues, the present study compared the level of linking accuracy achieved by using the simple matching index (S) to that of the commonly used Jaccard's coefficient (J) across themes of arson behaviour. The data consisted of 42 crime scene behaviours, separated into three behavioural themes, which were exhibited by 37 offenders across 114 solved arsons. The results of logistic regression and receiver operating characteristic analysis indicate that, with the exception of one theme where S was more effective than J at discriminating between linked and unlinked crimes, no significant differences emerged between the two similarity measures. In addition, our results suggest that thematically unrelated behaviours can be used to link crimes with the same degree of accuracy as thematically related behaviours, potentially calling into the question the importance of theme‐based approaches to behavioural linkage analysis. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Determining the Temporal Limits of a Visual Sample for Visual Regulation

The author examined the minimum amount of time needed for vision to increase aiming accuracy and decrease movement duration. Participants selected when they would receive a visual sample during aiming movements by pressing a switch held with the left hand. The sample was one of the following durations: 40 ms, 30 ms, 20 ms, 10 ms, or 0 ms (no vision). Decreased accuracy in the no-vision condition compared to the vision conditions was observed when the duration of the impending sample was unknown (Experiment 1). Samples 40 ms in duration were sufficient to decrease endpoint variability when the duration of the sample was known before the movement (Experiment 2). These results indicate that short visual samples can be used to decrease movement time and increase accuracy and that knowledge of the impending visual context can impact the individual's subsequent behavior.     

What do eye movements reveal about the role of memory in visual search?

Horowitz and Wolfe (1998, 2003) have challenged the view that serial visual search involves memory processes that keep track of already inspected locations. The present study used a search paradigm similar to Horowitz and Wolfe's (1998), comparing a standard static search condition with a dynamic condition in which display elements changed locations randomly every 111 ms. In addition to measuring search reaction times, observers' eye movements were recorded. For target-present trials, the search rates were near-identical in the two search conditions, replicating Horowitz and Wolfe's findings. However, the number of fixations and saccade amplitude were larger in the static than in the dynamic condition, whereas fixation duration and the latency of the first saccade were longer in the dynamic condition. These results indicate that an active, memory-guided search strategy was adopted in the static condition, and a passive “sit-and-wait” strategy in the dynamic condition.     

Distribution and Correlates of Self-Reported Crimes of Trust

This study examines the distribution and correlates of a special class of property crimes, crimes of trust, using longitudinal and cross sectional self-report data from a national sample. We begin by defining crimes of trust and consider their conceptual relationship to "conventional" property crimes, which we here characterize as crimes of stealth, and to white collar crimes, which are defined in terms of the social status of the perpetrators. Crimes of trust are here defined as property crimes that typically involve deliberate contact with the victim or, where there is more than one victim, with at least one or more victims, in which there is typically more of a focus on concealing the fact that a crime has been committed than on concealing the identity of the perpetrator (as is the case in crimes of stealth), without regard to the socioeconomic status of the perpetrator (thus including but not limited to white collar crimes). The focus here is on crimes of trust committed by individuals (as opposed to corporate crime). We first examine their distribution by sociodemographic characteristics, then examine the correlation of crimes of trust with other types of illegal behavior, using data from the National Youth Survey Family Study, including (1) longitudinal self-report data from a nationally representative panel of individuals who were 11-18 years old in 1976-77 and who were followed through early middle age (ages 36-44) in 2002-2003, plus (2) cross-sectional data on these individuals plus their parents, spouses, and children age 11 and older in 2002-2003 (total age range 11-88). The results suggest that crimes of trust have a different age-crime curve from conventional crimes, and that they are not as strongly correlated with problem substance use, gender, and other socioeconomic indicators as conventional crimes.     

Children's memory for the duration of a paediatric consultation

To learn about children's ability to estimate the duration of an event many days after it occurred, 6–12‐year‐old children were asked to judge the amount of time (range 5–45 minutes) they spent in the treatment room as part of a paediatric visit. Judgements were made 1 week or 1 month after the visit occurred. Children showed an average error of about 13 minutes. Retention interval did not significantly affect estimates. Other judgements of the length of the interview itself (mean length 8 minutes) provided what may be the first data on children's ability to make immediate retrospective duration estimates. The results also include information about children's capacity to judge how long ago they visited the clinic. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Development of time sensitivity: Duration ratios in time bisection

This study investigated the development of children's abilities to discriminate durations as a function of their ratio and examined whether the ability to discriminate durations that differed by a very difficult ratio is related to the development of attention capacities. Children aged 5 and 8 years, as well as adults, performed a series of temporal bisection tasks with a ratio between the short and the long anchor duration that was changed to control the difficulty of the task (5:6, 2:3, and 1:2) in two duration ranges (<1 s and >3 s). In addition, they completed neuropsychological tests in order to assess their short-term memory, working memory, and visual attention abilities. The results showed that, at ratios of 2:3 and 1:2, most participants were able to discriminate the anchor durations in bisection. However, their sensitivity to time improved, whatever the duration range, both as the distance between the anchor durations increased and with increasing age. For the smallest duration ratio (5:6), few of the children were able to discriminate the anchor durations in the bisection task in comparison to adults. Hierarchical regression analyses performed on the neuropsychological tests revealed that, for the 2:3 ratio between anchor durations, the participants' visual attention scores explained a large part of the variance in time sensitivity. The children's lower temporal sensitivity was probably due to their limited visual attention abilities, thus explaining the difficulty they experienced in discriminating very close durations (5:6).