Exploring the effects of age and delay on children's person identifications: Verbal descriptions, lineup performance, and the influence of wildcards

Abstract

We explored the effects of age and retention interval on several measures of children's person identification ability: verbal descriptions, lineup performance, and the success of a 'wildcard'--a photo of a silhouetted figure with a large question mark superimposed--in reducing children's tendency to choose from target-absent lineups. Children aged 5-7 years (N= 101) and 8-11 years (N= 109) were briefly exposed to an experimental confederate during a staged event. Either 1-2 days or 2 weeks later, children described the confederate and were then presented with either a target-present or -absent lineup. Within each group, approximately half of the children were presented with a wildcard and half were not. Target-present lineup performance improved as age increased. Compared to control children, children in the wildcard condition were more likely to correctly reject the target-absent lineup, and less likely to identify the innocent suspect. The wildcard did not influence children's target-present lineup accuracy, nor did delay exert an influence on any of our measures of lineup performance. These findings extend our knowledge of children's person identifications, as well as providing further support for the use of wildcards in photographic lineups.

Receiver operating characteristic analysis of age-related changes in lineup performance

“…Like other developmental research in the eyewitness area, we used a single target (Beresford & Blades, 2006;Lindsay & Wells, 1985;Pozzulo & Balfour, 2006;Pozzulo & Dempsey, 2006;Karageorge & Zajac, 2011), raising the possibility that our findings could be specific to the target used. A single event was also used, and as others have pointed out, the type of event may influence motivation, attention and ultimately memory strength (Pozzulo, Crescini, & Panton, 2008;Roebers, Gelhaar, Schneider, 2004;Thierry & Spence, 2004).…”

“…In the eyewitness identification literature, some studies have concluded that the ability to accurately remember faces improves with age (Brigham, Van Verst, & Bothwell, 1986;Goodman & Reed, 1986;Karageorge & Zajac, 2011;Leippe, Romanczyk & Manion 1991).…”

Are children less reliable at making visual identifications than adults? A review

“…A number of techniques have been investigated by researchers in an attempt to reduce false identifications for child witnesses they include; sequential lineups Parker & Ryan, 1993;Pozzulo & Lindsay, 1998), elimination lineups (Humphries et al, 2012;Pozzulo & Balfour, 2006;Pozzulo, Dempsey, & Gascoigne, 2009;Pozzulo & Lindsay, 1999), practice lineups (Goodman, Bottoms, Schwarz-Kenney, & Rudy, 1991;Parker & Ryan, 1993), and providing an additional response (Beal et al, 1995;Davies, Tarrant, & Flin, 1989;Dunlevy & Cherryman, 2013;Havard & Memon, 2013;Karageorge & Zajac, 2011;Zajac & Karageorge, 2009). The various methods will now be described in more detail below.…”

“…Humphries, Holliday, and Flowe (2012) also found that adults made more correct identifications, as compared to children aged 5Á6 years and 9Á10 years, but only with sequential lineups and not with elimination, or simultaneous lineups. Whilst Karageorge and Zajac (2011) reported that children aged 5Á7 were less accurate than those aged 8Á11 years of age. The majority of studies that have found developmental differences in performance for target present lineups have used a sample aged between 3Á6 years, and this suggests that there may be some developmental differences within this age group when it comes to making a correct identification.…”

Turnover intentions in Jordanian Universities: The role of leadership behaviour, organizational commitment and organizational culture

“…The result of Likert scale will illustrate the position and the attitude of an individual towards the purpose (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980). The most widely use this methodology because it is easy for respondent to use, understand and responses from such a scale are likely to be reliable and acceptable (Badara et al, 2014;Karageorge and Zajac, 2011;Myers and Gramling, 1997).…”