Anxious and Nonanxious Children's Face Identification

The impact of stress on children's face identification is not well understood, partly because of the ethical and methodological challenges posed by this line of research. In the present research, such challenges were addressed by having 4‐year‐old and 5‐year‐old children (n = 80) participate in swimming lessons that were anxiety provoking for some, but not all, children. Information processing conditions were also manipulated by varying event frequency and retention interval. Children's identifications were examined after both a short (1.5–4 weeks) and long (1 year) delay. Anxiety was largely unrelated to the accuracy of children's swimming instructor identifications; however, after a long delay, anxiety had a negative effect on correct line‐up rejections. In addition, the confidence–accuracy relation was influenced by the quality of the information processing conditions but only after a short delay. Implications for child witnesses are discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Earwitnesses: effects of speech duration,retention interval and acoustic environment

An experiment was conducted to investigate the reliability of voice lineups. More specifically, the experiment was designed to look into the effects of retention interval (an immediate test or after a week), speech duration (30 or 70 s) and acoustic environment (indoors or indoors and outdoors) on speaker identification accuracy. In addition, the relation between confidence assessments of both participants and test assistant on the one hand and identification accuracy was explored. A total of 361 participants heard the target voice in one of four exposure conditions (short or long text and speech samples recorded only indoors or indoors and outdoors). Half the participants were tested immediately after exposure to the target voice and half 1 week later. The results show that the target was correctly identified in 42% of cases. In the target‐absent condition there were 51% false alarms. Acoustic environment did not affect identification accuracy. There was an interaction between speech duration and retention interval in the target‐absent condition. When listeners were tested after a week, they made fewer false identifications if the speech sample was long. No effects were found when participants were tested immediately. Only the confidence scores of the test assistant had predictive value. Taking the confidence score of the test assistant into account therefore increases the diagnostic value of the identity parade. Copyright © 2004 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.     

Delay and Age Effects on Identification Accuracy and Confidence: An Investigation Using a Video Identification Parade

A total of 236 children (7–8‐year‐olds and 13–14‐year‐olds) attempted identification from either target‐present (TP) or target‐absent (TA) video parades, after either two days or two weeks, following exposure to a live target. It was found that with TP line‐ups, the most frequent response was a correct identification, but in the TA condition, the most frequent response was a false identification. Under both TP and TA conditions, the 3‐way interaction of delay, age and response was significant. Further analysis revealed that delay was the major contributor of variance, causing an increase in errors for both age groups in TP delayed line‐ups but only for the younger age group in TA delayed line‐ups. Confidence varied as a function of type of identification response made, with the highest confidence being given to a correct identification in a TP line‐up. However, response confidence entered into a number of interactions involving both delay and age. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Unravelling the effects of sequential presentation in culprit‐present lineups

It is well established that sequential presentation of faces 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. We advise policy makers not to advocate sequential testing until we have a full understanding of the conditions under which the sequential‐superiority effect may be observed. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

How Effective is the Enhanced Cognitive Interview when Aiding Recall Retrieval of Older Adults including Memory for Conversation?

The percentage of older adults in the general population is growing. As a result, older adults are coming more frequently into contact with the Criminal Justice System as witnesses to and victims of crime. Older adults are also over‐represented in crimes where conversation detail is of particular importance to an investigation (e.g. distraction burglary). The present study therefore examined the efficacy of cognitive interview (CI) compared with structured interview in improving the recall of an event by older witnesses, specifically conversational detail. Young adults (19–54 years old), young‐old adults (60–74 years old), and old‐old adults (75+ years old) were asked to watch a short film of a laptop theft and were then, after a 1.5 hour delay, randomly allocated to one of two interview conditions. It was found that the CI significantly increased recall of all age groups, without increasing the amount of incorrect or confabulated information reported. The individuals in the young adult and the young‐old adult conditions were found to remember significantly more than the individuals from the old‐old adult condition, without decreasing the accuracy of the information. The CI enhanced memory for conversation gist, person and action detail. Results will be discussed in relation to interviewing and investigating practices. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adult Age and Gender Differences in Eyewitness Recall in Field Settings1

Six-hundred-fifty-one citizens were stopped in public places and tested for prompted recall of physical characteristics of a young woman to whom they had spoken for approximately 15 s, 2 min earlier. Recall differed as a function of the two targets used on five of eight characteristics, but no significant differences were found for either target as a function of the gender or age group of the witnesses. Young adults (18-29 years of age) in general were superior to middle-aged adults (30-44), who in turn were superior to older adults (45-65). Women were significantly more accurate than men in accuracy of recall for weight, and for characteristics judged to be more important than less important for person memory. Male and female witnesses were equally confident in their recall performance. Young and middle-aged groups were significantly more confident in recall than the oldest group. Significant correlations were found between confidence and accuracy of recall for men and for women, and for each age group. Women made significantly longer duration estimates of the encounters with the targets than did men. Men overestimated the duration by a 2:1 ratio, and women overestimated by a 3:1 ratio. No significant correlations were found between accuracy of duration estimates and confidence in reports. The results were interpreted in terms of their forensic importance.     

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 orabsent 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.     

Postidentification feedback effects on face recognition confidence: evidence for metacognitive influences

Information given to witnesses after an identification decision greatly alters their impressions of the original event and importantly, their identification confidence. Two experiments investigated the possibility that the effect of feedback on confidence may be altered according to the strength of the witness's cues to accuracy. Experiment 1 used a manipulation of exposure duration to alter recognition accuracy prior to the delivery of confirming, disconfirming or no feedback. While the feedback effect was not different across exposure duration conditions, decisions that were made more quickly were less likely to show large changes in confidence due to feedback. Experiment 2 manipulated the distinctiveness of faces and showed that the effects of feedback on confidence, and on the resolution of the confidence judgement, were more pronounced when disconfirming feedback was given for distinctive faces and when confirming feedback was given for typical faces. These studies showed that the impressions that participants formed of their likely accuracy might moderate the effects of feedback on decision confidence. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Confidence and Eyewitness Identifications: The Cross‐Race Effect,Decision Time and Accuracy

Participants encountered same‐race and cross‐race faces at encoding, completed a series of line‐up identification tests and provided confidence ratings by using one of nine different confidence scales. Confidence was less well calibrated with identification accuracy when participants selected a cross‐race than a same‐race face because of overconfidence. By contrast, there was no cross‐race effect on confidence–accuracy calibration when participants responded ‘not present’. Whereas confidence was a very strong predictor of accuracy for fast identifications of a line‐up face, this was much less the case for slower decisions. Highly confident identifications showed a dramatic drop in accuracy from faster decisions to slower decisions, whereas there was little change in accuracy between faster and slower decisions for moderately confident or weakly confident identifications. Finally, we observed little influence of the format of the nine different confidence scales: numerical and verbal scales produced comparable calibration scores, as did scales with few or many points. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Novel lineup methods for improving the performance of older eyewitnesses

Previous research shows that older witnesses demonstrate poorer lineup performance compared to younger adults. Two experiments are presented which investigated the effectiveness of pre‐identification procedures aimed to reduce false identifications made by older adults. In experiment one older adults' demonstrated poorer lineup performance compared to younger adults. However, older adults benefited from pre‐lineup questions and a practice lineup prior to viewing a target absent (TA) lineup. In a second experiment, participants in the practice lineup condition made significantly fewer false identifications and more correct rejections on two TA lineups compared to participants in the control condition. On both target present (TP) lineups there was no significant difference in lineup performance between the two conditions. The effect of pre‐identification procedure on self‐reported lineup decision strategy and memory for non‐biased lineup instructions are discussed, as well as future research directions. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Post‐identification feedback,confidence and recollections of witnessing conditions in child witnesses

Eyewitness confidence and detailed memory reports are often considered reliable indicators of the credibility of the eyewitness testimony. This study investigated how feedback concerning the accuracy of a lineup identification influences witnesses' confidence in the accuracy of their identification decision and their judgements concerning the witnessing experience. Fifty‐seven children (11–12 years) and 55 adults (17–39 years) viewed a video of a robbery and attempted to identify the culprit from a photo lineup. The culprit was not present. Participants received confirming feedback, disconfirming feedback, or no feedback on the accuracy of their identification. The confidence judgements and recollections of witnessing conditions of both children and adults were influenced by confirming and in some instances, disconfirming feedback. These findings imply that confidence and memory reports are easily distorted by non‐specific feedback and investigators should be sensitive to this particularly when dealing with vulnerable witnesses such as children. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Mystery Man Can Help Reduce False Identification for Child Witnesses: Evidence from Video Line‐ups

It is well established that children (as young as 5 years) can correctly identify a target from a target present (TP) line‐up as accurately as adults; however, when shown a target absent (TA) line‐up, children make more false identifications. In the present study, children aged 5–7 and 8–11 years viewed a film of a staged theft, then 1–2 days later were shown either a TP or TA video line‐up. Half of the witnesses viewed line‐ups that included a ‘mystery man’ (a black silhouette with a white question mark), which they could select if they did not recognise anyone from the line‐up. When the ‘mystery man’ was present in the line‐up, there were significantly fewer false identifications for the TA line‐ups. This study shows that including a silhouette in a video line‐up can help reduce false identifications for children as young as 5 years of age, without reducing correct identifications. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Positive versus negative face recognition decisions: confidence,accuracy, and response latency

A large amount of eyewitness identification and face recognition research has investigated the confidence–accuracy (CA) relationship. One consistent finding is that positive recognition decisions (or choosers) demonstrate superior CA calibration to negative recognition decisions (or non‐choosers). This experiment tested whether an explanation of this difference, based on the information available for confidence judgements, accounted for the pattern of CA calibration in positive and negative face recognition decisions. CA calibration for positive and negative decisions was compared for both item and associative recognition judgements. Significantly greater resolution was observed for positive decisions in both the item and associative conditions. Similarly, for both judgement types, positive decisions evidenced a stronger response latency–accuracy relationship than negative decisions. Implications for diagnosing the accuracy of eyewitness identification are discussed. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The influence of face age on identification from a video line-up: A comparison between older and younger adults

A group of young-adult (aged 18–35 years) and older-adult witnesses (aged 61–83 years) viewed films of two similar staged thefts, one that depicted a young culprit and the other an older culprit. After a short delay of 40–60 minutes participants were presented with two separate video line-ups, one for each target. In one line-up the target was present (TP) and the other the target was absent (TA). Older adults performed more poorly in target present and absent line-ups, and showed no own-age bias, however young adults showed an own age advantage for the TA line-ups.     

Changing abilities in recognition of unfamiliar face photographs through childhood and adolescence: Performance on a test of non‐verbal immediate memory (Warrington RMF) from 6 to 16 years

A commonly used test of non‐verbal memory, which measures recognition for unfamiliar face pictures, was developed by Warrington (1984) , the Recognition Memory for Faces (RMF) test. The task has been widely used in adults in relation to neurological impairment of face recognition. We examined the relationship of RMF scores to age in 500 young people aged between 6 and 16 years. A linear relationship obtained between 6 and 10 years, followed by a ‘plateau’ between the ages of 10 and 13, followed by further improvement. Abilities on the test correlated with both verbal and non‐verbal intelligence, but the nonlinear function relating age and RMF survived partialling for intelligence in the younger age groups. The improvement of the adolescents compared with older children also survived partialling for IQ. We found no significant influence of gender or reported pubertal status (which was not obtained for all participants) on RMF once age was taken into account. Performance on other face‐processing tasks (emotion classification and accuracy in line of sight detection) correlated significantly, if moderately, with RMF scores. Despite its age and imperfections, RMF test may nevertheless be a useful indicator of ‘face expertise’ in a developmental context.     

The Moderating Effect of Ecphoric Experience on Post‐identification Feedback: A Critical Test of the Cues‐based Inference Conceptualization

Confidence inflation from confirming post‐identification feedback is greater when the eyewitness is inaccurate than when the eyewitness is accurate, which is evidence that witnesses infer their confidence from feedback only to the extent that their internal cues are weak. But the accurate/inaccurate asymmetry has alternative interpretations. A critical test between these interpretations was conducted by including disconfirming feedback conditions. Student participants (n = 404) witnessed a mock crime, had either a strong or weak ecphoric experience when making their line‐up identifications, and subsequently received no feedback, confirming feedback, or disconfirming feedback. Consistent with a cues‐based conceptualization of the feedback effect, disconfirming feedback influenced witnesses with weak ecphoric experiences more than witnesses with strong ecphoric experiences, ironically increasing the confidence‐accuracy relation. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Timing of reflexive visuospatial orienting in young, young-old, and old-old adults

This study examined adult age differences in reflexive orienting to two types of uninformative spatial cues: central arrows and peripheral onsets. In two experiments using a Posner cuing task, young adults (ages 18–28 years), young-old adults (60–74 years), and old-old adults (75–92 years) responded to targets that were preceded 100–1,000 ms earlier by a central arrow or a peripheral abrupt onset. In Experiment 1, the cue remained present upon target onset. Facilitation effects at short cue–target stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) were prolonged in duration for the two older groups relative to the young adults. At longer cue–target SOAs, inhibition of return (IOR) that was initiated by peripheral onset cues was observed in the performance of young adults but not in that of the two older groups. In Experiment 2, the cue was presented briefly and removed prior to target onset. The change in cue duration minimized age differences (particularly for young-old adults) in facilitation effects and led to IOR for all three age groups. The findings are consistent with the idea that attentional control settings change with age, with higher settings for older adults leading to delayed disengagement from spatial cues.     

Can a modified lineup procedure improve the usefulness of confidence?

In a face recognition, mini-lineup experiment we examined two aspects of the use of confidence about lineups. We modified the lineup procedure attempting to eliminate the difference in confidence–accuracy relationship between positive (old or identification) and negative (new or not present) decisions. In the modified procedure, participants: (1) selected the lineup member that best matched their memory of the target; (2) rated their confidence that the best match was indeed the target; and (3) indicated (yes/no) whether the best match was the target. Although the modified procedure produced higher accuracy than a standard simultaneous procedure, there was no evidence that it affected the confidence–accuracy relationship. Additionally, the modified procedure also allowed us to compare the extent to which confidence ratings versus binary recognition decisions better discriminated studied from unstudied faces. The results revealed a clear advantage for confidence, but indicated that binary responses were also a unique predictor.