Catching wanted people at the border: prospective person memory and face matching in border control decisions.

Border control officers may be on the lookout for wanted people while they verify that travellers match their passport photos. We developed a novel experimental paradigm to investigate whether people are more likely to report that someone is wanted if they also believe that person is using a fraudulent passport. In two experiments, undergraduate students assumed the role of a border control officer and completed multiple "shifts" of a face matching task designed to simulate a passport verification check. Before each shift participants viewed posters of wanted people and were instructed to report any sightings if a wanted person appeared in any of the images during the passport check. Participants were more likely to say an individual was wanted if they also believed the person did not match their passport image. In addition, the accuracy of wanted person sightings was reduced for trials with nonmatching passports compared to trials with matching passports. This suggests wanted people with matching passports were easier to spot because participants had an additional image to compare with their memory of the person in the wanted poster.

Estimation of eyewitness error rates in fair and biased lineups.

OBJECTIVE: The risk of mistaken identification for innocent suspects in lineups can be estimated by correcting the overall error rate by the number of people in the lineup. We compared this nominal size correction to a new effective size correction, which adjusts the error rate for the number of plausible lineup members. HYPOTHESES: We hypothesized that (a) increasing lineup bias would increase misidentifications of a designated innocent suspect; (b) with the effective size correction, increasing lineup bias would also increase the estimate of innocent-suspect misidentifications; and (c) with the nominal size correction, lineup bias would have no effect on the estimate of innocent-suspect misidentifications. METHOD: In a reanalysis of previous literature, we obtained 10 data sets from Open Science Framework. In three new experiments (Ns = 686, 405, and 1,531, respectively), participants observed a staged crime and completed a fair or biased lineup. RESULTS: In the reanalysis of previous literature, less than four of six lineup members were identified frequently enough to be classified as plausible, M = 3.78, 95% confidence interval [CI: 2.20, 5.36]. In the new experiments, increasing lineup bias increased mistaken identifications of a designated innocent suspect, odds ratio (OR) = 5.50, 95% CI [2.77, 10.95] and also increased the effective size-corrected estimate of innocent-suspect misidentifications, OR = 3.04, 95% CI [2.13, 4.33]. With the nominal size correction, lineup bias had no effect on the estimate of innocent-suspect misidentifications, OR = 0.84, 95% CI [0.60, 1.18]. CONCLUSIONS: Most lineups include a combination of plausible and implausible lineup members. Contrary to the nominal size correction, which ignores implausible lineup members, the effective size correction is sensitive to implausible lineup members and accounts for lineup bias when estimating the risk of innocent suspect misidentifications. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Structured word-lists as a model of basic schemata: deviations from content and order in a repeated event paradigm.

Repeated events are common in everyday life, but relatively neglected as a topic within memory psychology. In two samples of adults, we investigated memory for repeated, schema-establishing simple events (operationalised as structured word-lists), and the effects of deviations within those events. We focused on the effects of deviations from two core dimensions of schema: content and order. Across three successive word-list events, we established and reinforced a basic list schema by always presenting three content categories in the same order. These expectations were violated in a fourth and final word-list. We measured the effects on memory of both the violating and the schema-establishing lists in multiple recall attempts over a period of one month. We measured correct recall, misattribution errors, metacognitive awareness of list-organisation and deviations, and recall organisation. Across all delays and across all word-lists (not only the final one), content changes increased recall, whereas order changes decreased recall. Participants were also more aware of content changes than order changes. These disparate effects suggest that the two types of schema-deviations may have qualitatively different effects on memory for specific instances of a repeated generic event. Cognitive processes underlying memory for typical and exceptional instances of repeated events are discussed.

A meta-analysis of differences in children's reports of single and repeated events.

When children report abuse, they often report that it occurred repeatedly. In most jurisdictions, children will be asked to report each instance of abuse with as many details as possible. In the current meta-analysis, we analyzed data from 31 experiments and 3099 children. When accuracy was defined as the number of correct details from the target instance (i.e., narrow definition), repeated-event children were less accurate than single-event children. However, we argue that defining accuracy as the number of reported details that were experienced across instances (i.e., broad definition) is more appropriate for repeated events. When a broad definition was applied, single- and repeated-event children were similarly accurate. Importantly, repeated-event children were less likely than single-event children to report details that had never been experienced and they were no more likely to say "I don't know." Overall, repeated-event children were more suggestible than single-event children, but this was moderated by length of delay to recall. In analyses of recognition data, single-event children's sensitivity score was higher than repeated-event children's, with no significant difference in response bias as a function of event frequency. We discuss these results in the context of how children's memory for repeated events is organized. We also consider the advantage of applying a broad definition of accuracy for victims of repeated abuse and charging repeated abuse as a continuous offense rather than discrete acts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

The single lineup paradigm: A new way to manipulate target presence in eyewitness identification experiments.

The suspect in eyewitness lineups may be guilty or innocent. These possibilities are traditionally simulated in eyewitness identification studies using a dual-lineup paradigm: All witnesses observe the same perpetrator and then receive one of two lineups. In this paradigm, the suspect's guilt is manipulated by including the perpetrator in one lineup and an innocent suspect in the other. The lineup is then filled with people matched to either the suspect (resulting in different fillers in perpetrator-present and perpetrator-absent lineups) or to the perpetrator (resulting in the same fillers in each lineup). An inescapable feature of the dual-lineup paradigm is that the perpetrator-present and perpetrator-absent lineups differ not only in the suspect's guilt, but also in their composition. Here, we describe a single-lineup paradigm: Subjects observe one of two perpetrators and then all subjects receive the same lineup containing one of the perpetrators. This alternative paradigm allows manipulation of the suspect's guilt without changing the lineup's composition. In three experiments, we applied the single-lineup paradigm to explore suspect-filler similarity and consistently found that increasing similarity reduced perpetrator identifications but did little to prevent innocent suspect misidentifications. Conversely, when fillers were matched to the perpetrator using a dual-lineup paradigm, increasing similarity reduced identification of perpetrators and innocent suspects. This finding suggests that the effect of filler similarity may depend on the person to whom the fillers are matched. We suggest that the single-lineup paradigm is a more ecologically valid and better controlled approach to creating suspect-matched lineups in laboratory investigations of eyewitness memory than existing procedures. (PsycINFO Database Record

Eyewitness Identification: Live, Photo, and Video Lineups.

The medium used to present lineup members for eyewitness identification varies according to the location of the criminal investigation. Although in some jurisdictions live lineups remain the default procedure, elsewhere this practice has been replaced with photo or video lineups. This divergence leads to two possibilities: Either some jurisdictions are not using the lineup medium that best facilitates accurate eyewitness identification or the lineup medium has no bearing on the accuracy of eyewitness identification. Photo and video lineups are the more practical options, but proponents of live lineups believe witnesses make better identification decisions when the lineup members are physically present. Here, the authors argue against this live superiority hypothesis. To be superior in practice, the benefits of live presentation would have to be substantial enough to overcome the inherent difficulties of organizing and administering a live lineup. The review of the literature suggests that even in experimental settings, where these difficulties can be minimized, it is not clear that live lineups are superior. The authors conclude that live lineups are rarely the best option in practice and encourage further research to establish which nonlive medium provides the best balance between probative value and practical utility.

How sure are you that this is the man you saw? Child witnesses can use confidence judgments to identify a target.

We tested whether an alternative lineup procedure designed to minimize problematic influences (e.g., metacognitive development) on decision criteria could be effectively used by children and improve child eyewitness identification performance relative to a standard identification task. Five hundred sixteen children (6- to 13-year-olds) watched a video of a target reading word lists and, the next day, made confidence ratings for each lineup member or standard categorical decisions for 8 lineup members presented sequentially. Two algorithms were applied to classify confidence ratings into categorical decisions and facilitate comparisons across conditions. The classification algorithms produced accuracy rates for the confidence rating procedure that were comparable to the categorical procedure. These findings demonstrate that children can use a ratings-based procedure to discriminate between previously seen and unseen faces. In turn, this invites more nuanced and empirical consideration of ratings-based identification evidence as a probabilistic index of guilt that may attenuate problematic social influences on child witnesses' decision criteria. (PsycINFO Database Record

Suspect filler similarity in eyewitness lineups: a literature review and a novel methodology.

Eyewitness lineups typically contain a suspect (guilty or innocent) and fillers (known innocents). The degree to which fillers should resemble the suspect is a complex issue that has yet to be resolved. Previously, researchers have voiced concern that eyewitnesses would be unable to identify their target from a lineup containing highly similar fillers; however, our literature review suggests highly similar fillers have only rarely been shown to have this effect. To further examine the effect of highly similar fillers on lineup responses, we used morphing software to create fillers of moderately high and very high similarity to the suspect. When the culprit was in the lineup, a higher correct identification rate was observed in moderately high similarity lineups than in very high similarity lineups. When the culprit was absent, similarity did not yield a significant effect on innocent suspect misidentification rates. However, the correct rejection rate in the moderately high similarity lineup was 20% higher than in the very high similarity lineup. When choosing rates were controlled by calculating identification probabilities for only those who made a selection from the lineup, culprit identification rates as well as innocent suspect misidentification rates were significantly higher in the moderately high similarity lineup than in the very high similarity lineup. Thus, very high similarity fillers yielded costs and benefits. Although our research suggests that selecting the most similar fillers available may adversely affect correct identification rates, we recommend additional research using fillers obtained from police databases to corroborate our findings.

Reflector variables in augmented reality lineups: Assessing eyewitness identification reliability in children and adults with confidence, response time, and proximity to the lineup.

Attending to the behaviors of eyewitnesses at police lineups could help to determine whether an eyewitness identification is accurate or mistaken. Eyewitness identification decision processes were explored using augmented reality holograms. Children (n = 143; Mage = 10.79, SD = 1.12 years) and adults (n = 152; Mage = 22.12, SD = 7.47 years) viewed staged crime videos and made identification decisions from sequential lineups. The lineups were presented in augmented reality. Children were less accurate than adults on the lineup task. For adults, fast response times and high post-identification confidence ratings were both reflective of identification accuracy. Fast response times were also reflective of accuracy for children; however, children's confidence ratings did not reflect the likely accuracy of their identifications. A new additional measure, the witness' proximity to the augmented reality lineup, revealed that children who made mistaken identifications moved closer to the lineup than children who correctly identified the person from the crime video. Adults who moved any distance towards the lineup were less accurate than adults who did not move at all, but beyond that, adults' proximity to the lineup was not reflective of accuracy. The findings give further evidence that behavioral indicators of deliberation and information-seeking by eyewitnesses are signals of low lineup identification reliability. The findings also suggest that when assessing the reliability of children's lineup identifications, behavioral measures are more useful than metacognitive reports.

Absolute-judgment models better predict eyewitness decision-making than do relative-judgment models.

When presented with a lineup, the witness is tasked with identifying the culprit or indicating that the culprit is not present. The witness then qualifies the decision with a confidence judgment. But how do witnesses go about making these decisions and judgments? According to absolute-judgment models, witnesses determine which lineup member provides the strongest match to memory and base their identification decision and confidence judgment on the absolute strength of this MAX lineup member. Conversely, relative-judgment models propose that witnesses determine which lineup member provides the strongest match to memory and then base their identification decision and confidence judgment on the relative strength of the MAX lineup member compared to the remaining lineup members. We took a critical test approach to test the predictions of both models. As predicted by the absolute-judgment model, but contrary to the predictions of the relative-judgment model, witnesses were more likely to correctly reject low-similarity lineups than high-similarity lineups (Experiment 1), and more likely to reject biased lineups than fair lineups (Experiment 2). Likewise, witnesses rejected low-similarity lineups with greater confidence than high-similarity lineups (Experiment 1) and rejected biased lineups with greater confidence than fair lineups (Experiment 2). Only a single pattern was consistent with the relative model and inconsistent with the absolute model: suspect identifications from biased lineups were made with greater confidence than suspect identifications from fair lineups (Experiment 2). The results suggest that absolute-judgment models better predict witness decision-making than do relative-judgment models and that pure relative-judgment models are unviable.

Change detection inflates confidence on a subsequent recognition task.

A face viewed under good encoding conditions is more likely to be remembered than a face viewed under poor encoding conditions. In four experiments we investigated how encoding conditions affected confidence in recognising faces from line-ups. Participants performed a change detection task followed by a recognition task and then rated how confident they were in their recognition accuracy. In the first two experiments the same faces were repeated across trials. In the final two experiments novel faces were used on each trial. Target-present and target-absent line-ups were utilised. In each experiment participants had greater recognition confidence after change detection than after change blindness. The finding that change detection inflates confidence, even for inaccurate recognitions, indicates recognition certainty can be a product of perceived encoding conditions rather than authentic memory strength.

"Only your first yes will count": The impact of prelineup instructions on sequential lineup decisions.

When administering sequential lineups, researchers often inform their participants that only their first yes response will count. This instruction differs from the original sequential lineup protocol and from how sequential lineups are conducted in practice. Participants (N = 896) viewed a videotaped mock crime and viewed a simultaneous lineup, a sequential lineup with a first-yes-counts instruction, or a sequential control lineup (with no first-yes-counts instruction); the lineup was either target-present or target-absent. Participants in the first-yes-counts condition were less likely to identify the suspect and more likely to reject the lineup than participants in the simultaneous and sequential control conditions, suggesting a conservative criterion shift. The diagnostic value of suspect identifications, as measured by partial area under the curve, was lower in the first-yes-counts lineup than in the simultaneous lineup. Results were qualitatively similar for other metrics of diagnosticity, though the differences were not statistically significant. Differences between the simultaneous and sequential control lineups were negligible on all outcomes. The first-yes-counts instruction undermines sequential lineup performance and produces an artifactual simultaneous lineup advantage. Researchers should adhere to sequential lineup protocols that maximize diagnosticity and that would feasibly be implemented in practice, allowing them to draw more generalizable conclusions from their data. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Efeitos do alinhamento justo e similaridade de rostos no reconhecimento de pessoas / Effects of a fair lineup and face similarity similarity in eyewitness identification / Efectos de la alineación justa y similitud facial en el reconocimiento de personas

Um falso reconhecimento de uma pessoa pode levar à condenação de um inocente. Um método efetivo de diminuir o falso reconhecimento é por meio do alinhamento, procedimento no qual o suspeito é apresentado em conjunto com outras pessoas - fillers (não suspeitos similares ao suspeito). Em um experimento foi comparado o desempenho de testemunhas em alinhamentos nos quais fillers apresentavam moderada ou alta similaridade em relação ao suspeito. Independentemente do grau de similaridade, suspeitos foram identificados com maior frequência que suspeitos inocentes e do que fillers, e fillers foram reconhecidos em maior frequência do que suspeitos inocentes. A similaridade entre fillers e suspeito não teve efeito na probabilidade de reconhecimento do suspeito, seja ele culpado ou inocente. Os resultados são discutidos à luz de teorias acerca do efeito de similaridade de fillers e implicações dos resultados para o sistema de justiça brasileiro (AU).

Faulty witness identification can lead to the conviction of an innocent person. An effective method to reduce misidentification is using a lineup, a procedure in which the suspect is presented among "fillers" (non-suspects similar to the suspect). In an experiment, we compared the responses of eyewitnesses in lineups where fillers had moderate or high similarity to the suspect. Regardless of the degree of similarity, guilty suspects were identified more often than innocent suspects and fillers, and fillers were identified more often than innocent suspects. The similarity between fillers and suspect did not affect the probability of suspect recognition, whether the suspect was guilty or innocent. The results are discussed in the light of theories about the similarity effect of fillers, and implications for the Brazilian justice system (AU).

Un reconocimiento falso de una persona puede conducir a la condena de un inocente. Un método eficaz para reducir el reconocimiento falso es la alineación, un procedimiento en el que el sospechoso se presenta junto con otras personas - fillers (no sospechosos similares al sospechoso). En un experimento se compara el rendimiento de los testigos en alineaciones en las que los fillers tenían una similitud moderada o alta con el sospechoso. Los resultados mostraron que, independientemente del grado de similitud, en una alineación justa, los sospechosos culpables son más propensos a ser identificados que los inocentes y que los fillers, y cuando el sospechoso es inocente, los fillers tienen más probabilidades de ser reconocidos. La similitud entre filler y sospechoso no tuvo efecto sobre la probabilidad de reconocimiento del sospechoso, tanto si era culpable o inocente. Los resultados se discuten a la luz de las teorías sobre el efecto de similitud de los rellenos y las implicaciones de los resultados para el sistema judicial brasileño (AU).

Face-off: A new identification procedure for child eyewitnesses.

In 2 experiments, we introduce a new "face-off" procedure for child eyewitness identifications. The new procedure, which is premised on reducing the stimulus set size, was compared with the showup and simultaneous procedures in Experiment 1 and with modified versions of the simultaneous and elimination procedures in Experiment 2. Several benefits of the face-off procedure were observed: it was significantly more diagnostic than the showup procedure; it led to significantly more correct rejections of target-absent lineups than the simultaneous procedures in both experiments, and it led to greater information gain than the modified elimination and simultaneous procedures. The face-off procedure led to consistently more conservative responding than the simultaneous procedures in both experiments. Given the commonly cited concern that children are too lenient in their decision criteria for identification tasks, the face-off procedure may offer a concrete technique to reduce children's high choosing rates. (PsycINFO Database Record

Eyewitness identification across the life span: A meta-analysis of age differences.

Lineup identifications are often a critical component of criminal investigations. Over the past 35 years, researchers have been conducting empirical studies to assess the impact of witness age on identification accuracy. A previous meta-analysis indicated that children are less likely than adults to correctly reject a lineup that does not contain the culprit, but children 5 years and older are as likely as adults to make a correct identification if the culprit is in the lineup (Pozzulo & Lindsay, 1998). We report an updated meta-analysis of age differences in eyewitness identification, summarizing data from 20,244 participants across 91 studies. Contrary to extant reviews, we adopt a life span approach and examine witnesses from early childhood to late adulthood. Children's increased tendency to erroneously select a culprit-absent lineup member was replicated. Children were also less likely than young adults to correctly identify the culprit. Group data from culprit-absent and culprit-present lineups were used to produce signal detection measures, which indicated young adults were better able than children to discriminate between guilty and innocent suspects. A strikingly similar pattern emerged for older adults, who had even stronger deficits in discriminability than children, relative to adults. Although identifications by young adults were the most reliable, identifications by all witnesses had probative value.

Intentionally forgetting other-race faces: costs and benefits?

Eyewitnesses to events with multiple actors might be aware that during a subsequent investigation some actors will need to be remembered and others can be forgotten. Research on the directed-forgetting procedure suggests that when some information is cued to be forgotten, retention of other information is enhanced. In three experiments, directed-forgetting conditions were compared with control conditions to assess potential costs and benefits of forgetting other-race faces. In Experiment 1, undergraduate students (N = 148; mostly Caucasian) viewed all Black faces or all Asian faces followed by overt remember or forget cues. Participants in the directed-forgetting conditions of Experiments 2 and 3 received more covert cues instructing them to remember the faces of one race and to forget the faces of another race. In Experiment 2, undergraduate students (N = 116; all Caucasian) viewed Black and Asian faces within the context of a criminal storyline. In Experiment 3, undergraduate students (N = 94; all Caucasian) again viewed Black and Asian faces; however, the remember and forget cues were embedded in a noncriminal narrative. Although faces generally were forgotten on cue, forgetting some faces did not enhance memory for other faces. Furthermore, recognition of remember-cued faces was impaired by exposure to forget-cued faces. These findings indicate that faces can be forgotten on cue, but that doing so confers no benefit for remembering other faces. Eyewitnesses are advised that exposure to irrelevant faces reduces the likelihood that relevant faces will be remembered, even when effort is allocated to forgetting the irrelevant faces.