scholarly journals The Relationship Between Eyewitness Confidence and Identification Accuracy: A New Synthesis

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
John T. Wixted ◽  
Gary L. Wells
Keyword(s):  
Eyewitness Identification ◽  
Police Department ◽  
Field Studies ◽  
Information Value ◽  
Identification Accuracy ◽  
High Confidence ◽  
Testing Conditions ◽  
Eyewitness Confidence ◽  
New Synthesis ◽  
Mock Crime

Summary The U.S. legal system increasingly accepts the idea that the confidence expressed by an eyewitness who identified a suspect from a lineup provides little information as to the accuracy of that identification. There was a time when this pessimistic assessment was entirely reasonable because of the questionable eyewitness-identification procedures that police commonly employed. However, after more than 30 years of eyewitness-identification research, our understanding of how to properly conduct a lineup has evolved considerably, and the time seems ripe to ask how eyewitness confidence informs accuracy under more pristine testing conditions (e.g., initial, uncontaminated memory tests using fair lineups, with no lineup administrator influence, and with an immediate confidence statement). Under those conditions, mock-crime studies and police department field studies have consistently shown that, for adults, (a) confidence and accuracy are strongly related and (b) high-confidence suspect identifications are remarkably accurate. However, when certain non-pristine testing conditions prevail (e.g., when unfair lineups are used), the accuracy of even a high-confidence suspect ID is seriously compromised. Unfortunately, some jurisdictions have not yet made reforms that would create pristine testing conditions and, hence, our conclusions about the reliability of high-confidence identifications cannot yet be applied to those jurisdictions. However, understanding the information value of eyewitness confidence under pristine testing conditions can help the criminal justice system to simultaneously achieve both of its main objectives: to exonerate the innocent (by better appreciating that initial, low-confidence suspect identifications are error prone) and to convict the guilty (by better appreciating that initial, high-confidence suspect identifications are surprisingly accurate under proper testing conditions).

scholarly journals Estimating the reliability of eyewitness identifications from police lineups

2015 ◽  
Vol 113 (2) ◽  
pp. 304-309 ◽  
Author(s):  
John T. Wixted ◽  
Laura Mickes ◽  
John C. Dunn ◽  
Steven E. Clark ◽  
William Wells
Keyword(s):  
Eyewitness Identification ◽  
Police Department ◽  
The United States ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Eyewitness Confidence ◽  
Detection Model ◽  
Simultaneous Lineups ◽  
Simultaneous Procedure ◽  
Mock Crime ◽  
Eyewitness Identifications

Laboratory-based mock crime studies have often been interpreted to mean that (i) eyewitness confidence in an identification made from a lineup is a weak indicator of accuracy and (ii) sequential lineups are diagnostically superior to traditional simultaneous lineups. Largely as a result, juries are increasingly encouraged to disregard eyewitness confidence, and up to 30% of law enforcement agencies in the United States have adopted the sequential procedure. We conducted a field study of actual eyewitnesses who were assigned to simultaneous or sequential photo lineups in the Houston Police Department over a 1-y period. Identifications were made using a three-point confidence scale, and a signal detection model was used to analyze and interpret the results. Our findings suggest that (i) confidence in an eyewitness identification from a fair lineup is a highly reliable indicator of accuracy and (ii) if there is any difference in diagnostic accuracy between the two lineup formats, it likely favors the simultaneous procedure.

scholarly journals Digital Detectives: Websleuthing Reduces Eyewitness Identification Accuracy in Police Lineups

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camilla Elphick ◽  
Richard Philpot ◽  
Min Zhang ◽  
Avelie Stuart ◽  
Graham Pike ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Eyewitness Identification ◽  
Identification Accuracy ◽  
Directed Search ◽  
Filler Task ◽  
Online Study ◽  
Social Media Site ◽  
Police Lineup ◽  
Mock Crime ◽  
Lineup Identification

Eyewitnesses to crimes sometimes search for a culprit on social media before viewing a police lineup, but it is not known whether this affects subsequent lineup identification accuracy. The present online study was conducted to address this. Two hundred and eighty-five participants viewed a mock crime video, and after a 15–20 min delay either (i) viewed a mock social media site including the culprit, (ii) viewed a mock social media site including a lookalike, or (iii) completed a filler task. A week later, participants made an identification from a photo lineup. It was predicted that searching for a culprit on social media containing the lookalike (rather than the culprit) would reduce lineup identification accuracy. There was a significant association between social media exposure and lineup accuracy for the Target Present lineup (30% more of the participants who saw the lookalike on social media failed to positively identify the culprit than participants in the other conditions), but for the Target Absent lineup (which also included the lookalike) there was no significant association with lineup identification accuracy. The results suggest that if an eyewitness sees a lookalike (where they are expecting to see the culprit) when conducting a self-directed search on social media, they are less likely to subsequently identify the culprit in the formal ID procedure.

scholarly journals Reasons to Doubt the Reliability of Eyewitness Memory: Commentary on Wixted, Mickes, and Fisher (2018)

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberley A. Wade ◽  
Robert A. Nash ◽  
D. Stephen Lindsay
Keyword(s):  
Best Practice ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Eyewitness Memory ◽  
Field Studies ◽  
High Confidence ◽  
Psychological Science ◽  
Eyewitness Reports ◽  
The Common ◽  
Mock Crime

Wixted, Mickes, and Fisher (this issue) take issue with the common trope that eyewitness memory is inherently unreliable. They draw on a large body of mock-crime research and a small number of field studies, which indicate that high-confidence eyewitness reports are usually accurate, at least when memory is uncontaminated and suitable interviewing procedures are used. We agree with the thrust of Wixted et al.’s argument and welcome their invitation to confront the mass underselling of eyewitnesses’ potential reliability. Nevertheless, we argue that there is a comparable risk of overselling eyewitnesses’ reliability. Wixted et al.’s reasoning implies that near-pristine conditions or uncontaminated memories are normative, but there are at least two good reasons to doubt this. First, psychological science does not yet offer a good understanding of how often and when eyewitness interviews might deviate from best practice in ways that compromise the accuracy of witnesses’ reports. Second, witnesses may frequently be exposed to preinterview influences that could corrupt reports obtained in best-practice interviews.

scholarly journals Eyewitness Identification and Distinctive Features: When Similarity Matters

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamal K. Mansour ◽  
Jennifer L Beaudry
Keyword(s):  
Eyewitness Identification ◽  
Identification Accuracy ◽  
Correct Identification ◽  
Sequential Lineups ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Simultaneous Lineups ◽  
Innocent Suspect ◽  
Mock Crime

In four experiments, we investigated theoretical and practical issues around eyewitness identification accuracy and confidence for tattooed suspects. We varied how tattoos were treated in lineups (Experiments 1 and 2) and the match between the suspect’s tattoo the perpetrator’s tattoo (Experiments 3 and 4). We replicated the finding that modifying lineup photographs to prevent a tattooed suspect from standing out mitigates the risk of innocent suspect identifications. We also demonstrated that sequential lineups (cf. simultaneous) do not mitigate the risk of biased lineups when the suspect stands out because of a tattoo. Contrary to previous research in which biased lineups did not impact correct identification rates differentially by lineup type, we found that biased lineups decreased correct identifications in sequential, but not simultaneous, lineups. Additionally, we found that the tattoo worn by an innocent suspect need not be identical to that of the perpetrator—similar placement and designs also inflate innocent suspect identifications, although a tattoo in a different location with a different design protected innocent suspects. Finally, our data indicate that when researching distinctive marks in lineups, researchers should request descriptions from the eyewitness-participants following the mock crime in order to determine whether the witness noticed the distinctive mark.

scholarly journals Initial eyewitness confidence reliably predicts eyewitness identification accuracy.

2015 ◽  
Vol 70 (6) ◽  
pp. 515-526 ◽  
Author(s):  
John T. Wixted ◽  
Laura Mickes ◽  
Steven E. Clark ◽  
Scott D. Gronlund ◽  
Henry L. Roediger
Keyword(s):  
Eyewitness Identification ◽  
Identification Accuracy ◽  
Eyewitness Confidence

scholarly journals Eyewitness identification performance is not affected by time-of-day optimality

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergii Yaremenko ◽  
Melanie Sauerland ◽  
Lorraine Hope
Keyword(s):  
Eyewitness Identification ◽  
Time Of Day ◽  
Decision Time ◽  
Identification Accuracy ◽  
Optimal Time ◽  
Identification Performance ◽  
Accurate Identification ◽  
Facial Stimuli ◽  
Time Accuracy ◽  
Accuracy Relationship

AbstractThe circadian rhythm regulates arousal levels throughout the day and determines optimal periods for engaging in mental activities. Individuals differ in the time of day at which they reach their peak: Morning-type individuals are at their best in the morning and evening types perform better in the evening. Performance in recall and recognition of non-facial stimuli is generally superior at an individual’s circadian peak. In two studies (Ns = 103 and 324), we tested the effect of time-of-testing optimality on eyewitness identification performance. Morning- and evening-type participants viewed stimulus films depicting staged crimes and made identification decisions from target-present and target-absent lineups either at their optimal or non-optimal time-of-day. We expected that participants would make more accurate identification decisions and that the confidence-accuracy and decision time-accuracy relationships would be stronger at optimal compared to non-optimal time of day. In Experiment 1, identification accuracy was unexpectedly superior at non-optimal compared to optimal time of day in target-present lineups. In Experiment 2, identification accuracy did not differ between the optimal and non-optimal time of day. Contrary to our expectations, confidence-accuracy relationship was generally stronger at non-optimal compared to optimal time of day. In line with our predictions, non-optimal testing eliminated decision-time-accuracy relationship in Experiment 1.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document