Week 3: Eyewitness Identification

Question 1

What is the purpose of a lineup?

Answer 1

To see if the witness recognises the suspect

Question 2

What are the determinants of identification reliability?

Answer 2

The lineup requires the eyewitness to match lineup members to memory and this decision results from this matching process

The outcome of this matching process is influenced by:

• quality of eye witness memory
• characteristics of the lineup

Question 3

What conditions need to be considered regarding EW memory encoding?

Answer 3

Viewing conditions

• Duration: longer = stronger memories and more reliable evidence
• Distance: closer = stronger memories

Divided attention
- Weapon focus: presence of a weapon during a crime affects ability to accurately identify offender as it is a highly salient stimulus that grabs people’s attention, and they pay less attention to the person holding it

Question 4

What is interesting about EW account of distance during crime?

Answer 4

People are really bad at assessing the distance between themselves and a perpetrator
In some cases, overestimating by 50 metres

Question 5

What are the issues of memory storage in eyewitnesses?

Answer 5

The length of retention is important as memory fades over time

As time passes, there is also increased chances to interact with other witnesses that may influence or contaminate what they remember

It is rare for lab studies to test such long recall, in the real world it can be weeks, months or longer. However some studies have found correct IDs after a duration of time

Question 6

What is a common occurrence (with culprit) whilst waiting weeks/months to ID?

Answer 6

Natural change in appearance, basic changes as people age. Not unreasonable.

Question 7

How does changes in appearance affect ID accuracy?

Answer 7

Study: natural change over 4 years

Failures to ID the culprit increase
Correct ID’s decrease

Question 8

What about deliberate natural changes?

Answer 8

These are things such as having a haircut or shaving off facial hair

• causes a decrease in correct ID’s
• increase in incorrect rejection

Question 9

What is replication and concealment in a lineup?

Answer 9

Using editing software to edit a distinctive tattoo onto other lineup members or to conceal the same area on everyone

Question 10

What are the problematic assumptions of EW?

Answer 10

They assume they have a suspect and that the suspect is guilty (assume evidence)

An expectation is created that the guilt person is there and they have to pick them (primed to pick)

Wants to pick and if don’t have the right memory cues, they rely on environmental ones

Question 11

What are the environmental cues that an EW might rely on in the absence of memory cues?

Answer 11

Body language, suggestion etc

These can be intentional but are more often unintentional

Question 12

What are the recommendations for lineup administrations?

Answer 12

Double blind: EW and administrator should not know who the suspect is so that they don’t unintentionally influence ID

Unbiased instructions: nothing to imply culprit is present, don’t emphasise the importance of making an ID, not giving a ‘not present’ option

Question 13

What are some problems with double blind lineups?

Answer 13

It’s not practical - small police stations make it hard to find a police officer who doesn’t know

The investigators of the case may be reluctant to hand over the administration to someone else as they want to make sure it is done right

Question 14

What is a way to combat problems with double blind lineup administration?

Answer 14

It can be done in a computerised way - don’t even need administrator

Question 15

What is the affect of adding the line ‘the culprit may or may not be in the lineup’ to lineups?

Answer 15

It has the ability to cut false identification rates in half.

Shows the importance of cognitive factors

Question 16

Why should suspect photos be arranged in a circular way?

Answer 16

People typically guess the middle person in an array. They believe these to be hiding places
80% of the time, police officers will place the suspect in the middle.

Needs to be randomised and the EW should be told this.

Question 17

What is a bias in lineups resulting from composition and size?

Answer 17

You need a number of plausible candidates!

Select foils that either match physical similarity or match description

Question 18

What happens if candidates are too similar?

Answer 18

It creates an impossible memory task

Question 19

What are some problems what it comes to selecting foils?

Answer 19

The quality of descriptions provided by EW: may not report all they remember so items not cued are difficult to articulate. A lot of potentially important details don’t make it into the description

Additional details may be cued during recognition: what is the likelihood of an innocent suspect randomly sharing these details

Question 20

So should we match description or similarity when choosing foils?

Answer 20

Match-description is generally but not universally favoured

Probably require elements of both approaches

Question 21

What are the lineup presentation methods?

Answer 21

The show up

Simultaneous lineup

Sequential lineups

Question 22

Explain the show up presentation method?

Answer 22

Take a picture and show it to the witness this is the simplest way

An enormously suggestive procedure it conveys that it is the suspect and that there should be some level of evidence

Question 23

Explain the simultaneous lineup presentation method

Answer 23

Show many photos simultaneously
With a reminder that they may or may not be there

Promotes relative judgements

Question 24

Explain absolute and relative judgement

Answer 24

Absolute judgements are comparing memories to the person in the lineup and engaging the degree to which they match

Relative judgements are considering all of the people in the lineup and which is the closest match this is a problem if the perpetrator is absent

Question 25

What is the evidence for relative judgements

Answer 25

Similar choosing rates when the target is present and when the target is absent

Question 26

What are sequential lineups

Answer 26

Showing members one at a time then deciding yes or no

Question 27

Why is it good to use sequential lineups

Answer 27

They promote absolute judgements and reduce the reliance on relative judgements

Question 28

What are the effects of sequential lineups as determined by meta analysis

Answer 28

Lower choosing rates
Correct identifications = same or lower
Fewer false ID’s

Question 29

When is the sequential advantage more pronounced in sequential lineups and what is the process

Answer 29

When lineup size is not known in advance

This is called Backloading where you hide how many photos are left this works on the underlying assumption that the perpetrator is present somewhere and removes the mechanism where the witness gets more likely to pick as we get towards the end of the lineup

Question 30

What percentages does the most recent study attribute towards EW identifying fillers?

Answer 30

Sequential lineups 30% of all IDs are fillers

For simultaneous lineups 41% of all ID’s are fillers

These error rates are still too high

Question 31

Overall what can we say eyewitness memory and identification reliability are shaped by

Answer 31

The conditions in which the memory was formed and the conditions in which the memory was tested it is often an interaction between these two

Psychologist cannot determine ID accuracy but can talk sensibly about reliability

Question 32

What is the role of confidence in eyewitness identification

Answer 32

Confident identifications are more persuasive and are more likely to be believed

In mock juror Studies when we manipulate confidence identifications - more believable

Question 33

What is the relationship between confidence and reliability of information

Answer 33

There are good theoretical reason such as confidence is tied to memory strength therefore and more reliable identification

There is a strong linear relationship between the percentage of correct identifications and the eyewitness confidence

Question 34

When does Confidence need to be measured

Answer 34

Immediately after the decision is made

Question 35

What else increases confidence in an eyewitness

Answer 35

Preparing them for cross-examination increases their confidence also telling them that a co-witness identified the same suspect, telling them they identified the correct suspect increases their confidence