Eyewitness lineups are typically composed of a suspect (guilty or innocent) and fillers (known innocents). Meta-analytic techniques were used to investigate the extent to which manipulations of suspectfiller similarity influenced identification decisions. Compared with lineups with moderate or high similarity fillers, lineups with low similarity fillers were far more likely to elicit suspect identifications. This was true regardless of whether the suspect was guilty or innocent, underscoring the importance of ensuring the suspect does not stand out from the fillers. Although whether the lineup contained moderate or high similarity fillers had no reliable influence on guilty suspect identifications, a higher rate of innocent suspect misidentifications was found for moderate similarity lineups. The correspondence between the meta-analytic findings and current lineup construction recommendations is discussed.

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.

Perceptions of children's credibility were studied in two experiments wherein participants watched a videotape of a 4-to 5-or a 6-to 7-year old child report details of a play session that had been experienced once (single-event) or was the last in a series of four similar play sessions (repeat-event). The child's report was classified as high or low accurate. In Experiments 1 and 2, reports of repeat-event children were judged to be less believable on several measures. In Experiment 1, younger children were viewed as less credible than older children.In both experiments, neither undergraduates nor community members correctly discriminated between high-and low-accurate reports. Content analysis in Study 3 revealed the relationship between age and event frequency and children's credibility ratings was mediated by the internal consistency of children's reports. Recent research on children's reports of instances of repeated events has identified several challenges facing children who report repeated abuse. These data bring to light another potential difficulty for these children. Keywords Children . Law . Perceived credibility . Repeat eventsIn child sexual abuse (CSA) cases, there is rarely any corroborating evidence (Bruck, Ceci, & Hembrooke, 2001;Lamb, 1999;Pezdek et al., 2004) and so decisions about children's credibility made by child protection workers, police, prosecutors, and triers of fact are often determinative of the investigative and/or adjudicative outcome (Goodman, Batterman-Faunce, & Schaaf, 2002;McCarron, Ridgway, & Williams, 2004;Pezdek et al., 2004). Indeed, Lamb (1999) found that research concerning child witnesses is expanding to include communicative competence. And, Castelli, Goodman, and Ghetti (2005) reasoned that perceived credibility may be at least as important as actual accuracy. After all, it is the child's ability to communicate, combined with the ability of those working in the forensic system to understand that communication, which is often determinative of outcome. An important factor to consider when studying perceived credibility is the nature of the event that children may be asked to describe. Often, when children

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.

This research examined whether a memorable and unexpected change (deviation details) presented during 1 instance of a repeated event facilitated children's memory for that instance and whether a repeated event facilitated children's memory for deviation details. In Experiments 1 and 2, 8-year-olds (N = 167) watched 1 or 4 live magic shows. Children were interviewed about the last or only show, which did or did not contain deviation details. Children reported more accurate information about the instance when deviation details were presented than when they were not, but repeated experience did not improve memory for deviation details. In Experiment 3, children (N = 145; 6- to 11-year-olds) participated in 4 magic shows and answered questions about each one. Deviation details were manipulated such that they caused a change in how the show was experienced (continuous) or had no such effect on the rest of the show (discrete). Younger, but not older, children's recall of all instances improved when a continuous deviation occurred compared to no deviation. Implications for how deviation details are represented in memory, as well as forensic applications of the findings, are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

No abstract

To enhance the accuracy and completeness of children's testimony, recommendations have included implementing a practice narrative, during which children are prepared for their role as informative witnesses before discussing the allegations. In the present study, we aimed to systematically examine interviewer behaviour and the informativeness of children's testimony in a field setting. As predicted, interviewers posed fewer prompts, proportionally more open-ended prompts, and children provided proportionally more details in response to open-ended prompts in the substantive phase when preceded by a practice narrative than when no practice narrative was conducted. The relationship was enhanced when the practice narratives were conducted as recommended vs those that were conducted in a less open-ended manner. Together with experimental studies showing clear benefits of practice narratives on children's reports, these results underscore the value of a simple practice narrative as a means of enhancing the reliability of children's testimony.

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.