Applied issues in the construction and expert assessment of photo lineups

Brigham, John C.; Meissner, Christian A.; Wasserman, Adina W.

doi:10.1002/(sici)1099-0720(199911)13:1+<s73::aid-acp631>3.0.co;2-4

Cited by 20 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 14 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…These estimates of the risk to an innocent suspect are conservative for two reasons. First, lineups rarely yield equal distributions of error because the innocent suspect will commonly stand out for any number of reasons, including the selection of fillers that bear a poor resemblance to the description of the perpetrator given by the witness (Valentine & Heaton, 1999; Brigham, Meissner, & Wasserman, 1999). Second, when the actual perpetrator is not in the lineup (i.e., the suspect is innocent), the rates of filler identification increase (see Wells & Olson, 2002).…”

Section: Common Methods Used In Eyewitness Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In lab studies, the mock-witness paradigm appears to be sensitive to lineup bias and is relatively robust across variations in lineup procedure (e.g., simultaneous vs. sequential procedures; see McQuiston & Malpass, 2002). Studies of photo arrays and lineups from actual cases using the mock-witness method reveal that arrays are frequently biased against suspects, who are picked more than twice as often (relative to the fillers) as one would expect by chance alone (Brigham et al, 1999;Valentine & Heaton, 1999;Wells & Bradfield, 1999b). Lineup Size.…”

Section: Lineupsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Eyewitness Evidence

Wells

Memon

Penrod

2006

Psychol Sci Public Interest

306

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The criminal justice system relies heavily on eyewitnesses to determine the facts surrounding criminal events. Eyewitnesses may identify culprits, recall conversations, or remember other details. An eyewitness who has no motive to lie is a powerful form of evidence for jurors, especially if the eyewitness appears to be highly confident about his or her recollection. In the absence of definitive proof to the contrary, the eyewitness's account is generally accepted by police, prosecutors, judges, and juries.However, the faith the legal system places in eyewitnesses has been shaken recently by the advent of forensic DNA testing. Given the right set of circumstances, forensic DNA testing can prove that a person who was convicted of a crime is, in fact, innocent. Analyses of DNA exoneration cases since 1992 reveal that mistaken eyewitness identification was involved in the vast majority of these convictions, accounting for more convictions of innocent people than all other factors combined. We review the latest figures on these DNA exonerations and explain why these cases can only be a small fraction of the mistaken identifications that are occurring.Decades before the advent of forensic DNA testing, psychologists were questioning the validity of eyewitness reports. Hugo Münsterberg's writings in the early part of the 20th century made a strong case for the involvement of psychological science in helping the legal system understand the vagaries of eyewitness testimony. But it was not until the mid-to late 1970s that psychologists began to conduct programmatic experiments aimed at understanding the extent of error and the variables that govern error when eyewitnesses give accounts of crimes they have witnessed. Many of the experiments conducted in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s resulted in articles by psychologists that contained strong warnings to the legal system that eyewitness evidence was being overvalued by the justice system in the sense that its impact on triers of fact (e.g., juries) exceeded its probative (legal-proof) value. Another message of the research was that the

show abstract

Section: Common Methods Used In Eyewitness Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Lineupsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Eyewitness Evidence

Wells

Memon

Penrod

2006

Psychol Sci Public Interest

306

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…A group of simulated witnesses, who have not witnessed the crime video and who did not know the identity of the perpetrator, received a brief description of the perpetrator, and were asked to select the suspect from the list based on this description. For the lineup to be considered fair, the mock witnesses should not be able to identify the suspect at a rate greater than chance (lineup bias), and the distribution of their choices should be spread equally over the lineup members (lineup size, Brigham et al, 1999). In order to measure the lineup size, the Acceptable Lineup Members technique (ALM) was used (Malpass and Devine, 1983).…”

Section: Initial Lineupmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identification Performance During Quarantine by COVID-19 Pandemic: Influence of Emotional Variables and Sleep Quality

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused major disruptions in people’s lives around the globe. Sleep habits and emotional balance have been disturbed in a way that could be comparable to the havoc caused by a deep personal crisis or a traumatic experience. This unfortunate situation provides a unique context in which to study the impact of these imbalances on cognitive processes. In particular, the field of eyewitness science could benefit from these conditions, since they are also often present in crime victims, but can only be generated in the laboratory up to a certain ethical and practical limit. For several decades, eyewitness studies have tried to discover what variables affect people’s ability to properly recognize faces. However, the disparity of experimental designs and the limitations of laboratory work could be contributing to the lack of consensus around several factors, such as sleep, anxiety, and depression. Therefore, the possibility of observing the influence of these agents in natural contexts could shed light on this discussion. Here, we perform simple and repeated lineups with witnesses of mock-crime, considering the conditions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, which to some extent allow emulating the deterioration in general well-being that often afflicts crime victims. For this, 72 participants completed symptomatology scales, and watched a video portraying a staged violent episode. Subsequently, they gave testimony and participated in two lineups, in which we manipulated the presence/absence of the perpetrator, to recreate critical scenarios for the appearance of false recognitions. We found an increase in recognition errors in those individuals who did not have access to the perpetrator during the Initial lineup. Additionally, the conditions of the pandemic appear to have adversely affected the ability to witness and accurately perform lineups. These results reaffirm the need to move toward the standardization of research practices and methods for assessing testimonial evidence, especially in relation to the results of the lineups. Considering the degree of fallibility of these processes can lead to a reduction of wrongful convictions.

show abstract

“…Σε κάθε δίκαια κατασκευασμένη σειρά, η πιθανότητα να επιλεγεί το καθένα από τα μέλη της είναι στα πλαίσια του τυχαίου, όπως αυτό προκύπτει από τον αριθμό των περισπασμών (1/Ν). Αρχειακές έρευνες που εφάρμοσαν τη μέθοδο των εικονικών μαρτύρων καταδεικνύουν ότι οι σειρές είναι συχνά μεροληπτικές έναντι του υπόπτου (Brigham, Meissner, & Wasserman, 1999. Valentine & Heaton, 1999.…”

Section: σειράunclassified

Αναγνώριση Σημαίνει Ενοχή; Mια Ανασκόπηση Των Παραγόντων Επιρροής Της Επίδοσης Των Αυτοπτών Μαρτύρων

Sagana¹,

Sauerland²

2020

Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Eyewitness identification stands as one of the core aspects of the judicial system. However, when it comes to identifying faces, people often make mistakes. Thus, it should not come as a surprise that eyewitness identification has been shown to be the number one factor of wrongful convictions (www.innoccenceproject.org). Therefore it is importantto understand the reasons that make eyewitnesses so error prone and investigate how we could enhance their performance. In the present article we examine the factors that have an impact on eyewitnessidentification performance. More specifically, we will refer to those variables over which the research community has reached consensus. These include estimator and system variables as well as postdictors,which are variables capable to diagnose the identification accuracy once it has taken place. In doing so we aim to reveal those parameters that are based on a sturdy research base, but have notwithstanding beenneglected by the Greek judicial system. We suggest a number of alterations and improvements, based on this research basis that can improve identification performance.

show abstract

Applied issues in the construction and expert assessment of photo lineups

Cited by 20 publications

References 14 publications

Eyewitness Evidence

Eyewitness Evidence

Identification Performance During Quarantine by COVID-19 Pandemic: Influence of Emotional Variables and Sleep Quality

Αναγνώριση Σημαίνει Ενοχή; Mια Ανασκόπηση Των Παραγόντων Επιρροής Της Επίδοσης Των Αυτοπτών Μαρτύρων

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About