A Preidentification Questioning Effect: Serendipitously Increasing Correct Rejections

A study designed to test the effects of delay between crime and lineup on identification accuracy produced an unusually high rate of correct rejection from target-absent, simultaneous lineups (J. E. Dysart, 1999). Examining the procedures indicated that one question included in a preidentification questionnaire differed from those used previously. The question asked witnesses if they believed they would be able to correctly reject a target-absent lineup. An experiment (N = 138) was conducted to explore the impact of preidentification questions, including this new question, on witness accuracy. Results revealed that asking witnesses these questions, prior to viewing the lineup, significantly increased correct rejections of target-absent simultaneous lineups.     

Children's identification of unfamiliar voices on both target-present and target-absent lineups

ABSTRACT

A robust finding from the eyewitness literature is that children are as accurate as adults on target-present lineups from the age of five years, whereas they continue to make an erroneous false positive identification from a target-absent lineup up until around fourteen years of age (Pozzulo, J. D., & Lindsay, R. C. L. (1998). Identification accuracy of children versus adults: a meta-analysis. Law and Human Behavior, 22(5), 549–570). The current study explores whether the same pattern occurs when voices are used instead of faces. A total of 334 participants from six age groups (6–7-year-olds, 8–9-year-olds, 10–11-year-olds, 12–13-year-olds, 14–15-year-olds and adults) listened to a 30 second audio clip of an unfamiliar voice and were then presented with either a six person target-present or target-absent voice lineup. Overall, participants were more accurate with target-present than target-absent lineups. Moreover, performance on target-present lineups showed adult-like levels of attainment by 8–9 years of age. In contrast, performance on target-absent lineups was extremely poor, with all age groups tending to make a false identification. Confidence was higher when participants made correct rather than incorrect decisions for both types of lineup and this did not change with increasing age. Given these results, both child and adult earwitness evidence needs to be treated with considerable caution.     

Own-age bias in video lineups: a comparison between children and adults

Abstract

The present study investigated whether child (six–eight years of age) and adult witnesses (18–29 years of age) would exhibit an own-age bias when trying to identify targets from video lineups. One hundred and eighty-six participants viewed two filmed events that were identical, except one starred a child target and one a young adult. After a delay of two–three days each witness saw a lineup for the child and adult target. Children exhibited an own-age bias and were better at correctly identifying the own-age target from a target-present (TP) lineup and made more correct rejections for the own-age target-absent (TA) lineup. Adults however, showed a reversed own-age bias for the TP lineups as they made more correct identifications for the child target, but exhibited no bias for the TA lineups. The results suggest that differences in identification accuracy may be due to whether witness age and suspect age overlap.     

Children's and adults' eyewitness identification accuracy when a culprit changes his appearance: Comparing simultaneous and elimination lineup procedures

Adults' (N = 239) and children's (N = 177, age range 8–13 years) identification abilities were examined when a culprit underwent a change in appearance following the commission of a crime. Simultaneous and elimination lineup procedures were compared to determine the reliability of each under ‘change in appearance’ conditions. Participants viewed a staged, videotaped theft and then examined a target‐present or ‐absent lineup. Correct identifications (target‐present lineups) decreased following a change in appearance regardless of age of witness and lineup procedure. Children's correct rejection rates (target‐absent lineups) were lower than those of adults. The elimination procedure compared with the simultaneous procedure was more effective at increasing correct rejections when the lineup members matched the culprit's appearance for children and adults. When lineup members did not match the culprit's appearance, correct rejection rates were similar across the two identification procedures for both aged groups.     

An attempt to reduce guessing behavior in children's and adults' eyewitness identifications

The effects of age of witness, gender of witness, lineup presentation, and practice on eyewitness testimony were investigated. Ninety-six elementary-school children and 96 college students viewed a slide sequence of a crime, followed by target-present or target-absent photo identification in sequentially or simultaneously presented lineups. Prior to photo identification, half the subjects received a practice lineup. Children had a higher rate of choosing than adults, resulting in more foil identification errors in both target-present and target-absent lineups. Without prior practice, sequential presentation as compared to simultaneous presentation reduced errors in target-absent lineups for adult witnesses and showed a similar but nonsignificant reduction for child witnesses. With prior practice, sequential presentation lost the advantage over simultaneous presentation in target-absent error reduction. Practice reduced target-absent errors in simultaneous-presentation lineups for both age groups.     

Simultaneous,Sequential, Elimination,and Wildcard: A Comparison of Lineup Procedures

This study compared four lineup procedures: the simultaneous, sequential, elimination, and wildcard. Two hundred and sixty-nine university students (M = 20.17 years) watched a mock, videotaped crime. Then, following a brief delay, they viewed a 6-person target-present or -absent lineup using one of the four lineup procedures. For target-present lineups, correct identification rates for the four lineup procedures were comparable. In contrast, for target-absent lineups, the correct rejection rate was higher using the elimination lineup procedure compared to the wildcard and simultaneous lineup procedures. Remaining comparisons between lineup procedures found no significant differences. Also diagnosticity ratios were similar across the four procedures.     

A Re-examination of the Effects of Biased Lineup Instructions in Eyewitness Identification

A meta-analytic review of research comparing biased and unbiased instructions in eyewitness identification experiments showed an asymmetry, specifically that biased instructions led to a large and consistent decrease in accuracy in target-absent lineups, but produced inconsistent results for target-present lineups, with an average effect size near zero (N. M. Steblay, 1997). The results for target-present lineups are surprising, and are inconsistent with statistical decision theories (i.e., D. M. Green & J. A. Swets, 1966). A re-examination of the relevant studies and the meta-analysis of those studies shows clear evidence that correct identification rates do increase with biased lineup instructions, and that biased witnesses make correct identifications at a rate considerably above chance. Implications for theory, as well as police procedure and policy, are discussed.     

Does Lineup Size Matter with Child Witnesses

Children’s (N = 89) identification accuracy was examined as a function of lineup size. Participants (8–13 years) viewed a videotaped staged event, described what was witnessed and then were presented with either a target-present or—absent lineup containing 6 versus 12 lineup members. The elimination lineup procedure (Pozzulo and Lindsay J Appl Psychol 38: 2195–2209 1999) was used to present lineups. No significant differences in correct identification rates were found across the target-present sized lineups. In addition, the target was likely to “survive” at a comparable rate regardless of lineup size. Moreover, there was no significant difference in correct rejection rate as a function of lineup size. The non significance of these data are critical given that most research with child witnesses uses 6-person lineups whereas in many real world contexts larger sized lineups are used (e.g., 12-person in Canada).     

The Culprit in Target-Absent Lineups: Understanding Young Children’s False Positive Responding

Young children (4- to 7-years old; N = 59) and adults (N = 53) were shown a series of targets that were either familiar (i.e., popular cartoon characters) or unfamiliar (unknown human faces) to assess whether children’s false positive responding with target-absent lineups is driven by social factors to a greater degree than cognitive factors. Although children were able to produce correct identification rates with virtually 100% accuracy for the cartoon characters, they produced a significantly lower correct rejection rate compared to adults. Children also produced a significantly lower correct rejection rate for the human faces compared to adults. These data are discussed for understanding children’s identification evidence.     

Simultaneous Lineups,Sequential Lineups,and Showups: Eyewitness Identification Decisions of Adults and Children

Two experiments were conducted comparing the identification accuracy of children aged 3–15 years (N = 307) and undergraduates (N = 384) using target-present and target-absent simultaneous and sequential lineups and showups. Correct identification rates tended not to vary across either age of subject or identification procedure. However, children show a significant tendency to guess as indicated by their lower rate of correct rejection when the target is absent. The tendency for children to make false positive choices was particularly evident with showups.     

The Mystery Man Can Increase the Reliability of Eyewitness Identifications for Older Adult Witnesses

Some groups of eyewitnesses, such as older adults and children, are less likely to correctly reject a target-absent (TA) line-up, as compared to younger adults. Previous research reports that using a silhouette in a video line-up called the ‘mystery man’ could increase correct rejections for TA lineups for child eyewitnesses, without reducing correct identifications for target-present (TP) line-ups (Havard and Memon in Appl Cogn Psychol 27:50–59, 2013). The current study, using older and younger adults, investigated whether using the mystery man would also increase the identification accuracy for older adults, without impairing younger adults’ identification accuracy. The results found that older adults in the ‘mystery man’ condition rejected TA line-ups significantly more often than those in the control condition (52 vs. 24 %), with no significant effect upon the TP line-ups. For the younger adults, the mystery man had no influence on identification responses for the TA or TP line-ups. Our findings suggest the mystery man technique may be beneficial for older adults, without detrimentally affecting the accuracy for younger adults, and thus could increase the reliability of eyewitness evidence, where video line-ups are employed.     

The effect of choice reversals on blindness for identification decisions

The present study examined blindness for identification decisions from target-present (TP) and target-absent (TA) lineups using a field study methodology. Eighty pedestrians were exposed to a staged theft. Subsequently, they were asked to identify the thief and the victim from separate, simultaneous six-person lineups. Their identification decision concerning the thief lineup was manipulated such that participants’ selections were exchanged with a previously unidentified lineup member (choice exchange) and lineup rejections were turned into identifications (choice reversal). Participants were 7–10 times less likely to detect choice exchanges (66.7%) compared with choice reversals (11.2%). Furthermore, identification accuracy was not a prerequisite for detection. Thus, rejections and particularly selections made from both TP and TA lineups are susceptible to choice blindness. Finally, our study implies that for blindness in eyewitness identification decisions between-category changes (i.e. choice reversals) are easier to detect than within-category changes (i.e. choice exchanges).     

Lineup Identification by Children: Effects of Clothing Bias

This study examined effects of clothing cues on children's identification accuracy from lineups. Four- to 14-year-olds (n = 228) saw 12 video clips of individuals, each wearing a distinctly colored shirt. After watching each clip children were presented with a target-present or target-absent photo lineup. Three clothing conditions were included. In 2 conditions all lineup members wore the same colored shirt; in the third, biased condition, the shirt color of only one individual matched that seen in the preceding clip (the target in target-present trials and the replacement in target-absent trials). Correct identifications of the target in target-present trials were most frequent in the biased condition, whereas in target-absent trials the biased condition led to more false identifications of the target replacement. Older children were more accurate than younger children, both in choosing the target from target-present lineups and rejecting target-absent lineups. These findings suggest that a simple clothing cue such as shirt color can have a significant impact on children's lineup identification accuracy.     

Lineup Administrators' Expectations: Their Impact on Eyewitness Confidence

This research focuses on how lineup a administrators influence eyewitnesses' postidentification confidence. What happens to witness confidence when a witness makes an identification that confirms the lineup administrator's expectations; what happens when this expectation is not confirmed? In Experiment 1, participant interviewers (n = 52) administered target-absent photo lineups to participant witnesses (n = 52). The interviewers did not view the simulated crime, but were told the thief's position in the lineup. In every instance this information was false (we used a target-absent lineup). A one-way ANOVA revealed that eyewitness identification confidence was malleable as a function of interviewers' beliefs about the thief's identity. In Experiment 2, participant jurors (n = 80) viewed 40 testimonies of Experiment 1 witnesses (2 participants viewed each testimony). Participant jurors judged all participant witnesses as equally credible despite their varying levels of postidentification confidence.

     

Overhearing the Planning of A Crime: Do Adults Outperform Children As Earwitnesses?

This study examined the reliability of earwitnesses using an ecologically realistic experimental set-up. A total of 282 participants, distributed over three age-groups (7–9 vs. 11–13 year olds vs. adults), were exposed to an unfamiliar voice for 40 seconds. After a two week delay, they were presented with a 7-voice lineup. Half of the participants were exposed to a target-present lineup (TP), and the other half to a target-absent lineup (TA). For both types of lineups the participants performed poorly. In the TP-condition only the 11–13-year olds (with 27% correct identifications) performed above chance level. Furthermore, in the TA-condition all age-groups showed a high willingness to make an identification (overall mean = 53%). For both groups of children, voice identification co-varied significantly with speaking rate and pitch level, as did pitch variation for the youngest children. Neither factor correlated significantly with the adults’ identifications.     

The Effect of Exposure to Multiple Lineups on Face Identification Accuracy

This study examines the conditions under which an intervening lineup affects identification accuracy on a subsequent lineup. One hundred and sixty adults observed a photograph of one target individual for 60 s. One week later, they viewed an intervening target-absent lineup and were asked to identify the target individual. Two days later, participants were shown one of three 6-person lineups that included a different photograph of the target face (present or absent), a foil face from the intervening lineup present or absent), plus additional foil faces. The hit rate was higher when the foil face from the intervening lineup was absent from the test lineup and the false alarm rate was greater when the target face was absent from the test lineup. The results suggest that simply being exposed to an innocent suspect in an intervening lineup, whether that innocent suspect is identified by the witness or not, increases the probability of misidentifying the innocent suspect and decreases the probability of correctly identifying the true perpetrator in a subsequent test lineup. The implications of these findings both for police lineup procedures and for the interpretation of lineup results in the courtroom are discussed.     

A Re-examination of the Effects of Biased Lineup Instructions in Eyewitness Identification

A meta-analytic review of research comparing biased and unbiased instructions in eyewitness identification experiments showed an asymmetry; specifically, that biased instructions led to a large and consistent decrease in accuracy in target-absent lineups, but produced inconsistent results for target-present lineups, with an average effect size near zero (Steblay, 1997). The results for target-present lineups are surprising, and are inconsistent with statistical decision theories (i.e., Green & Swets, 1966). A re-examination of the relevant studies and the meta-analysis of those studies shows clear evidence that correct identification rates do increase with biased lineup instructions, and that biased witnesses make correct identifications at a rate considerably above chance. Implications for theory, as well as police procedure and policy, are discussed.