Non‐blind lineup administration biases administrators' interpretations of ambiguous witness statements and their perceptions of the witness

Administering lineups “blind”—whereby the administrator does not know the identity of the suspect—is considered part of best practices for lineups. The current study tests whether non‐blind lineup administrators would evaluate ambiguous eyewitness statements, and the witness himself or herself, in a manner consistent with their beliefs. College students (n = 219) were told the identity of the suspect or not before administering a lineup to a confederate‐witness who made an ambiguous response (e.g., “it could be #3 but I'm not sure”). When ambiguous witness statements matched administrators' beliefs regarding the suspect (compared with when they mismatched administrators' beliefs, or administrators had no belief), administrators (a) were significantly more likely to record the statement as an identification (as opposed to a “not sure” response); (b) were significantly less likely to make statements that might lead the witness away from the suspect; and (c) evaluated the witness's viewing conditions significantly more positively.     

An Aiibi Witness' Influence on Mock Jurors' Verdicts1

The impact of alibi testimony on juror decision making is not yet clear because it has been examined empirically infrequently. This study was designed to determine the impact of alibi witness' testimony, the impact of an alibi witness with a relationship in comparison to one without a relationship to the defendant, and the impact of an eyewitness' confidence on juror decision making. Results indicated that mock jurors acquit a defendant more often when an alibi witness with no relationship to the defendant testified on his behalf. Participants did not believe an alibi witness who had a relationship with the defendant even though the witness was not a family member. Implications for these results are discussed.     

Absolute and Relative Decision Processes in Eyewitness Identification

A prominent and long-standing theory of eyewitness identification decision making distinguishes between absolute judgments, based on the lineup members' match to the witness's memory of the perpetrator, versus relative judgments, based on match values relative to other lineup members. This distinction was implemented in a computational model and simulations showed that the model predicts an accuracy advantage for absolute judgments over relative judgments under some conditions. The present experiment tested this prediction by evaluating the accuracy of witnesses instructed to use relative or absolute rules. Contrary to predictions, the overall analysis did not show an absolute advantage. Additional exploratory analyses showed a relative advantage when the suspect was surrounded by high-similarity foils. These results are consistent with a model that assumes that side-by-side comparisons of lineup members increase diagnostic accuracy by allowing witnesses to give greater weight to more diagnostic features and less weight to less diagnostic features.     

A cross-race effect in metamemory: Predictions of face recognition are more accurate for members of our own race

The Cross-Race Effect (CRE) is the well-replicated finding that people are better at recognizing faces from their own race, relative to other races. The CRE reveals systematic limitations on eyewitness identification accuracy, suggesting that some caution is warranted in evaluating cross-race identification. The CRE is problematic because jurors value eyewitness identification highly in verdict decisions. We explore how accurate people are in predicting their ability to recognize own-race and other-race faces. Caucasian and Asian participants viewed photographs of Caucasian and Asian faces, and made immediate judgments of learning during study. An old/new recognition test replicated the CRE: both groups displayed superior discriminability of own-race faces. Importantly, relative metamnemonic accuracy was also greater for own-race faces, indicating that the accuracy of predictions about face recognition is influenced by race. This result indicates another source of concern when eliciting or evaluating eyewitness identification: people are less accurate in judging whether they will or will not recognize a face when that face is of a different race than they are. This new result suggests that a witness's claim of being likely to recognize a suspect from a lineup should be interpreted with caution when the suspect is of a different race than the witness.     

The effect of biased lineup instructions on eyewitness identification confidence

Although it is well‐known that biased lineup instructions (i.e., those that do not inform witnesses the perpetrator may not be in the lineup) inflate false identifications, their effects on witness confidence are less well understood due to methodological limitations of past studies. We report two studies that use novel methodologies to obviate these limitations. Study 1 (N = 177) demonstrated that biased lineup instructions increased witnesses' average estimates of the likelihood that a lineup member is guilty. Study 2 (N = 137) introduces a novel debiasing paradigm that allows a parsing of choosers into those who made an identification only because of the biased instructions (induced choosers), and those who would have chosen despite the instructions (inherent choosers). Biased lineup instructions inflated confidence only among induced choosers, but not among inherent choosers. Contrary to legal reasoning, witness confidence is an insufficient metric to determine the suggestiveness of biased instructions.     

Child‐Witness and Defendant Credibility: Child Evidence Presentation Mode and Judicial Instructions1

Child‐witness presentation mode, judicial instructions, and deliberation stage effects on juror ratings of child witness and defendant were investigated Perceptions of the impact of presentation mode on witnesses, juror task, and justice also were explored. Participants (N= 108) viewed a simulated child sexual abuse trial videotape. Overall child‐witness credibility was significantly more positive with videodeposition or court‐given child evidence than with videolink. The defendant was seen as more definitely guilty when child testimony was court given than by videodeposition or videolink. Presentation mode also significantly influenced perceived impact on child witness, defendant case, and juror task. Judicial instructions interacted with presentation mode to affect perceptions of impact on child witness and juror task. Findings are discussed in relation to previous research, and implications for future research and practice are outlined.     

Anger in lineup identification and creation

As an approach-oriented emotion, anger appears to affect behavioral thresholds in a range of contexts. The current work consists of three experiments examining this in the context of eyewitness identification procedures. Experiments 1 and 2 examined the relationship between a witness' anger and identification reliability, and Experiment 3 examined the relationship between a lineup creator's anger and the quality of selected lineup fillers. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that anger during an identification procedure is associated with increased risk of false identifications and reduced confidence-accuracy calibration. Experiment 3 showed that anger is associated with lower quality of fillers selected by lineup creators. Together, these experiments suggest that anger may undermine the quality of eyewitness evidence, even when the witnesses themselves are not the ones experiencing anger and even when anger is not directed at the perpetrator or suspect.     

Co‐witness feedback in line‐ups

The aim of the current study was to establish whether feedback from a co‐witness concerning their choice of suspect could influence an individual witness' certainty and other testimony‐relevant judgements. Eighty‐two university students and members of the general public viewed a film of a staged mugging in pairs and then made an identification of who they thought was the suspect from a culprit‐absent line‐up (i.e. identification parade). The participants were then required to tell their partner whom they had identified and to fill out a questionnaire with testimony‐relevant questions (e.g. How good a view did you get of the person in the line‐up?). When the pairs of participants agreed on their choice of suspect, their scores on the testimony‐relevant questions tended to be higher than when the pairs did not agree. This shows that co‐witnesses can influence each others' memory reports when giving each other feedback after the identification process. The implications of these findings are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mock juror's perceptions of a child witness passing or failing a truth and lies discussion or promising to tell the truth

This study examined the effect of a child passing or failing the UK truth and lies discussion (TLD) compared with the Canadian promise to tell the truth on mock jurors' decisions regarding witness credibility and truthfulness and defendant guilt. Ninety-two participants read a vignette that described a child witnessing his father physically attacking his mother. The vignette was manipulated for witness age (age 4 years and age 8 years) and TLD performance/promise. Supporting the hypotheses, participants rated the witness's credibility and truthfulness significantly higher after a witness passed a TLD and after promising to tell the truth. The age of the child witness did not significantly affect jurors' decision making. The results are discussed in relation to arguments regarding the abolition of the UK's TLD in favour of introducing a promise to tell the truth.     

Susceptibility to postidentification feedback is affected by source credibility

How much a person is affected by postidentification feedback is dependent on the credibility of the person giving the feedback. Seven hundred and ninety participants across three experiments viewed a crime video, made judgments from a line‐up, were provided with co‐witness and/or outcome feedback (from police officers [high credibility] or children [low credibility]), and answered testimony‐relevant questions (e.g. How good a view did you get of the person in the video?). The aim was to find out how high versus low credibility co‐witness feedback affects a witness' retrospective judgments (Experiment 1) as well as estimations of these co‐witnesses' judgments (Experiment 2). Experiment 1 showed that the feedback effect was only observed when the co‐witness responses were attributed to a high credibility source. Experiment 2 showed that high credibility co‐witnesses were estimated to score higher on the testimony‐relevant questions as compared to low credibility co‐witnesses. Experiment 3 showed that outcome feedback (e.g. ‘you identified the suspect’) produces stronger effects on testimony‐relevant questions than co‐witness feedback. The implications of these findings are that when postidentification feedback is present, it is important to determine the source of this feedback. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Motivational Bias in Criminal Investigators' Judgments of Witness Reliability1

An experiment was conducted where experienced criminal investigators (N = 49) evaluated the testimony of a witness who either confirmed or disconfirmed the focal hypothesis in a homicide case. Participants' motivation to perpetuate the hypothesis was manipulated by varying the need for cognitive closure via time pressure. The hypothesis‐inconsistent witness was perceived as less reliable and credible, although its background and witnessing conditions were identical to those of the hypothesis‐consistent witness. While this asymmetrical skepticism was not moderated by time pressure, participants under high (vs. low) time pressure were less inclined to adjust their confidence in the hypothesis in line with the witness testimony. Discussion focuses on implications for criminal investigations and theoretical contributions to investigative psychology.     

Double Exposure: The Effects of Repeated Identification Lineups on Eyewitness Accuracy

Eyewitnesses may be asked to identify the same suspect from a lineup on successive occasions. This study explored the effects on eyewitness decisions of repeated same‐suspect lineups, within a 2 × 2 × 2 mixed‐model factorial design. Witnesses to a video crime attempted to identify the culprit from two same‐format lineups (simultaneous or sequential) separated by a 2‐week retention interval (Lineup1, Lineup2) in which a suspect (guilty or innocent) was common to the lineups. We predicted two components of a posited repeated lineup effect: that positive identification errors made at the first lineup would be carried forward rather than corrected at the second lineup and that the number of false identifications of the innocent suspect would rise from first to second lineup. Predictions were supported, with a stronger negative impact of repeated lineups for simultaneous than sequential lineups. Additionally, witnesses who made selections of the guilty suspect and of the innocent suspect at Lineup2 were equally confident and were significantly more confident than witnesses who declined to pick. The results underscore concerns about possible negative outcomes from repeated lineups. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effect of viewing the interview and identification process on juror perceptions of eyewitness accuracy

This study examined whether showing jurors a video of the witness's initial attempts to describe and identify the perpetrator would facilitate jurors' ability to discriminate between accurate and inaccurate witnesses. Mock jurors observed a simulated trial in which the key witness testified under direct examination and cross‐examination. The jurors saw either the witness's testimony or the witness's testimony plus videotape footage of the earlier police interviews in which the witness described and attempted to identify the perpetrator. Results support the hypothesis: Jurors in the examination‐plus‐video condition discriminated between accurate and inaccurate witnesses better than jurors in the examination‐only condition. We discuss various mechanisms to explain the advantage provided by the video. It is recommended that police officers videotape the line‐up procedure and that jurors be shown this video at trial. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Witnesses’ memories for lineup fillers postdicts their identification accuracy

Witnesses who have quick, automatic recognition experiences when viewing a lineup tend to make more accurate decisions than witnesses who engage in slower, more deliberative processes. A novel postdictor of identification accuracy is predicted from these findings: memories for lineup fillers should be stronger among inaccurate, rather than accurate, witnesses. Undergraduate students (N = 320) viewed a mock crime, made a lineup identification decision, and were given a surprise test for their memory for the lineup fillers. Consistent with predictions, better memories for lineup fillers postdicted mistaken identifications and the suspect's innocence. Information gain analyses showed that under some conditions, memory for lineup fillers provided as much information about the suspect's guilt as a lineup identification. Findings are consistent with the idea that postdictors of eyewitness accuracy are valuable to the extent that they measure the automaticity or deliberativeness of the witness's experience when viewing the lineup.     

Post‐identification feedback effects: Investigators and evaluators

We investigated the effects of post‐identification feedback and viewing conditions on beliefs and interviewing tactics of participant‐investigators, crime reports of participant‐witnesses and participant‐evaluators' credibility judgments of the witnesses. Study 1 participants assumed the roles of witness and investigator (N = 167 pairs). Witnesses' view of a simulated crime video was manipulated by distance from viewing monitor: 2 or 9 ft. Participants made a line‐up identification and received either positive feedback or no feedback. Significant effects for witnesses and investigators were associated with viewing condition and post‐identification feedback. Interviews between investigator‐witness pairs were videotaped. Investigators asked more positive, leading questions when they were led to believe that the witness had identified the suspect. In Study 2 evaluators (N = 302) viewed the witness‐investigator interviews. Viewing condition had no effect on judgments of witness credibility but positive post‐identification feedback led evaluators to judge witnesses as more credible than witnesses who received no feedback. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effects of Testimonial Inconsistencies and Witness Group Identity on Mock‐Juror Judgments1

We examined the interaction of testimonial consistency and witness group identity on mock jurors' judgments of witness effectiveness, probability that the defendant committed the crime, and verdict. In a 3 × 2 (Witness Group Identity × Testimonial Consistency) between‐groups design, 180 mock jurors heard a trial of a person charged with assault. Although both variables affected judgments, group‐identity effects were weak when testimony was characterized by inconsistencies, and they were stronger when testimony was internally consistent but ambiguous. The judgment patterns were consistent with predictions from Chaiken, Liberman, and Eagly's (1989) heuristic‐systematic processing theory, suggesting that heuristic processing would bias systematic processing when the evidence was not decisive.     

Children as witnesses: A comparison of lineup versus showup identification methods

The goal of this study was to compare children's and adults eyewitness identification accuracy when presented with an array of possible suspects (‘lineup’) versus one suspect (‘showup’). Kindergarten children and adults were shown a slide show of a staged theft and subsequently asked whether, of the photo or photos shown them, the perpetrator was present or not. Children were more likely than adults to identify the perpetrator correctly when that suspect was present in the lineup or showup. Children were also more likely than adults to make an incorrect identification of another person when the perpetrator's photo was not present in the lineup or showup. Because false positive identification errors are more difficult to detect with the showup than the lineup, use of the showup may be less appropriate with child witnesses than with adults due to children's greater tendency to make positive identifications.