Eyewitness Identification Accuracy: The Influence of Olfactory Stimuli Used as a Form of Context Reinstatement

Abstract

The purpose of the current study was to examine the influence of olfactory stimuli used as a form of context reinstatement on eyewitness identification and recall accuracy. Participants (N = 184) attended two sessions. In the first session, participants viewed a video of a staged, non-violent theft and then completed the free recall form. Participants returned for the second session one week later where they again completed the free recall form and the lineup task. In each session, participants were randomly assigned to either the scent or no scent condition. It was hypothesized that a match in scent at both sessions would result in the most accurate identification decisions. A trend was found for a higher correct identification rate and a higher correct rejection rate when encoding and retrieval sessions matched versus mismatched. Scent did not influence the number of descriptors or proportion of accurate descriptors recalled.Overall, the results from the current study suggest that scent may have a minimal influence on eyewitness accuracy when used as a form of context reinstatement. Implications and future directions are discussed. CONTEXT REINSTATEMENT AND EYEWITNESS ACCURACYiii Acknowledgements