Legal actors' and laypersons' utility judgments of eyewitness lineup procedures and outcomes.

OBJECTIVE: Recent attempts to model the relative performances of eyewitness lineup procedures necessarily include theoretical assumptions about the various costs/benefits, or utilities, of different identification outcomes. We collected data to incorporate empirically derived utilities into such modeling as well as data on various stakeholders' views of lineup procedures as tertiary objectives. HYPOTHESES: This research was exploratory; therefore, we did not have a priori hypotheses. METHOD: We surveyed judges' (n = 70), prosecutors' (n = 28), police officers' (n = 82), and laypersons' (n = 191) opinions about eyewitness identification procedures and the utilities of outcomes of eyewitness identification procedures. We incorporated the utility judgments into models comparing the desirability of various lineup reforms and compared policy preferences between our samples. RESULTS: All samples frequently mentioned estimator and system variables in open-ended evaluations of lineup procedures, but legal samples mentioned system variables more often than did laypersons. Reflector variables (e.g., confidence) were mentioned less often across the board, as was the scientific basis/standardization of identification policy (especially among laypersons). Utility judgments of various identification outcomes indicated that judges adopt values more closely aligned with normative legal ethics (i.e., the Blackstone ratio), whereas other stakeholders (especially laypersons) depart significantly from those standards. Utility models indicated general agreement among samples in lineup procedure preferences, which varied as a function of culprit-presence base rates. CONCLUSION: Although legal stakeholders vary in how they value eyewitness identification outcomes, their values imply relatively consistent policy preferences that sometimes depart from scientific recommendations. Nonetheless, all samples expressed support for using scientific research to inform legal policy regarding eyewitness evidence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

A taxometric approach to base-rate estimation and idiographic classification in psycholegal research.

OBJECTIVES: Taxometric analysis employs multiple, nonoverlapping statistical procedures to estimate parameters that characterize latent categories (e.g., base rates). Consistency among these estimates can inform substantive inferences about latent variables and facilitate idiographic classification. We provide a sketch of a taxometric research program to estimate guilty-suspect base rates in criminal justice and legal systems and use this sketch to explore the possible benefits of taxometric investigations for science and public policy. HYPOTHESES: We investigated whether taxometric analysis can accurately estimate base rates and facilitate idiographic classifications under conditions psycholegal researchers might face. METHOD: We demonstrate taxometric analysis on simulated data to detect latent categories, estimate their base rates, and classify individual cases. RESULTS: Our simulations show that taxometric analysis can accurately estimate taxon base rates. Specifically, estimated base rates differed from simulated base rates by less than 3%. Further, idiographic classification rules derived from taxometric analysis accurately classified individual cases in additional data sets, with positive predictive values and negative predictive values exceeding .85. CONCLUSIONS: If legal categories of interest represent nonarbitrary classes, taxometric methods afford an analytic approach by which researchers can use fallible indicator variables to estimate their base rates and develop algorithms for legal classification. We discuss potential objections to the taxometric approach and identify important avenues for future research and development in psycholegal applications of taxometric methods. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Innocence in the shadow of COVID-19: Plea decision making during a pandemic.

Over 95% of criminal convictions in the United States are the result of guilty pleas. Consequently, it is critical that we ensure the process of pleading guilty is as free of coercion as possible. Yet, research has indicated that incarcerating defendants to await trial could have an undue influence on their decision to plead guilty. The current research employed a novel computer simulation to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on plea decision making among the innocent and the guilty when faced with potential pretrial detention. While presenting COVID-related information to participants increased both true and false guilty pleas, further analyses indicated that concerns about COVID-19 weighed more heavily on the innocent than the guilty. These findings illustrate the negative impact a pandemic could have in combination with a system of pleas that often allows prosecutors to provide defendants with just one guaranteed respite from jail-a guilty plea. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Internal state configures olfactory behavior and early sensory processing in Drosophila larvae.

Animals exhibit different behavioral responses to the same sensory cue depending on their internal state at a given moment. How and where in the brain are sensory inputs combined with state information to select an appropriate behavior? Here, we investigate how food deprivation affects olfactory behavior in Drosophila larvae. We find that certain odors repel well-fed animals but attract food-deprived animals and that feeding state flexibly alters neural processing in the first olfactory center, the antennal lobe. Hunger differentially modulates two output pathways required for opposing behavioral responses. Upon food deprivation, attraction-mediating uniglomerular projection neurons show elevated odor-evoked activity, whereas an aversion-mediating multiglomerular projection neuron receives odor-evoked inhibition. The switch between these two pathways is regulated by the lone serotonergic neuron in the antennal lobe, CSD. Our findings demonstrate how flexible behaviors can arise from state-dependent circuit dynamics in an early sensory processing center.

Memory strength and lineup presentation moderate effects of administrator influence on mistaken identifications.

Administrator/witness pairs (N = 313) were randomly assigned to target-absent lineups in a 2 (Suspect/Perpetrator Similarity: High Suspect Similarity vs. Low Suspect Similarity) × 2 (Retention Interval: 30 min vs. 1 week) × 2 (Lineup Presentation: Simultaneous vs. Sequential) × 2 (Administrator Knowledge: Single-Blind vs. Double-Blind) factorial design to test whether suspect similarity and memory strength constrain interpersonal expectancy effects on eyewitness identification accuracy. Administrators who knew which lineup member was the suspect (single-blind) or who administered simultaneous lineups were more likely to emit verbal and nonverbal behaviors that suggested to the witness who the suspect was. Additionally, single-blind administrators exerted more pressure on witnesses to choose the suspect as opposed to fillers. Administrator knowledge interacted with retention interval and lineup presentation to influence mistaken identifications of innocent suspects; witnesses were more likely to mistakenly identify an innocent suspect from single-blind than double-blind lineups when witness retention intervals were long and photographs were presented simultaneously. Contrary to our predictions, suspect/perpetrator similarity did not interact with other manipulated variables to influence identification decisions. Both sequential and double-blind procedures should be used to reduce the use of suggestive behavior during lineup administration. (PsycINFO Database Record