He did it! Or did I just see him on Twitter? Social media influence on eyewitness identification.

Eyewitness identification is fallible, and suggestive post-event information is known to facilitate error; however, whether social media valence affects identification decisions is unknown. After viewing crime videos of various race perpetrators, participants saw post-event Twitter photos of the perpetrator or a foil that varied in valence. Participants attempted identification from a lineup including both individuals and rated the confidence and source (i.e., video, Twitter) of their selection. Results showed that Twitter photos of the perpetrator increased the likelihood of accurate identification and related confidence, whereas seeing the foil reduced the likelihood of a correct identification and related confidence. Remembering the perpetrator from the crime influenced correct identification, while remembering other incorrect sources (e.g., Twitter) only lead to misidentification. Twitter valence and perpetrator race did not impact outcomes. Results suggest that difficulty in identifying a perpetrator is underpinned by source monitoring confusion which is exacerbated by viewing social media that includes innocent suspects.

What's in a face? The role of facial features in ratings of dominance, threat, and stereotypicality.

Faces judged as stereotypically Black are perceived negatively relative to less stereotypical faces. In this experiment, artificial faces were constructed to examine the effects of nose width, lip fullness, and skin reflectance, as well as to study the relations among perceived dominance, threat, and Black stereotypicality. Using a multilevel structural equation model to isolate contributions of the facial features and the participant demographics, results showed that stereotypicality was related to wide nose, darker reflectance, and to a lesser extent full lips; threat was associated with wide nose, thin lips, and low reflectance; dominance was mainly related to nose width. Facial features explained variance among faces, suggesting that face-type bias in this sample was related to specific face features rather than particular characteristics of the participant. People's perceptions of relations across these traits may underpin some of the sociocultural disparities in treatment of certain individuals by the legal system.