How sure are you that this is the man you saw? Child witnesses can use confidence judgments to identify a target.

Bruer, Kaila C.; Fitzgerald, Ryan J.; Price, Heather L.; Sauer, James D.

doi:10.1037/lhb0000260

Cited by 10 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 64 publications

(156 reference statements)

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“…Similar conclusions have been reached in other research recruiting children who are between the ages of 8 and 11 (Brewer & Day, 2005;Parker & Carranza, 1989;Parker & Ryan, 1993). Thus, the witness literature suggests that children who are younger than 12 have not yet fully developed the skills to monitor their memory, or to use confidence scales to indicate accuracy (Powell et al, 2013; but see Bruer, Fitzgerald, Price, & Sauer, 2017 for a notable exception). Critically, this conclusion has informed legal guidance worldwide.…”

Section: Memory Monitoring In Childrensupporting

confidence: 77%

“…Children in all age groups were more likely to make accurate suspect IDs when they interacted first with the suspect's face instead of the other filler faces. As such, interactivity behavior might provide more information about what people remember than the overt recognition decision (yes/no) alone (for similar ideas, see Bruer et al, 2017;Hannula, Baym, Warren, & Cohen, 2012). We also found a trend that subjects were better able to tell the difference between innocent and guilty suspects, when they spent less time interacting.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…from "not at all sure" (empty cup) to "very sure" (full cup; see Figure 4A). The RA explained the water-cup rating scale following Bruer et al (2017). In short, subjects were told that the amount of water in the cup reflected how sure they were, with more water meaning that they were more sure.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Child Witness Expressions of Certainty are Informative

Winsor¹,

Flowe²,

Seale-Carlisle³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Children are frequently victims and witnesses of crime. In the witness identification literature, children are deemed to have unreliable memories. Yet, in developmental research, even young children display appropriate metacognitive cues that reflect their accuracy. To address these contradictory findings, we asked children in young- (4–6 years), middle- (7–9 years), and late- (10–17 years) childhood (N = 2,205) to watch a person in a video, and then identify that person from a police lineup. We asked children to provide a confidence rating for their identification decision (a direct metacognitive cue), and used an interactive lineup—in which the lineup faces can be rotated and viewed from different angles—to analyze children’s viewing behavior (an indirect metacognitive cue). According to calibration statistics that have traditionally been calculated in the witness literature, confidence was only informative about accuracy in late-childhood. Confidence-Accuracy Characteristic analysis, however, suggested that confidence and accuracy were related and high-confidence suspect identifications were highly accurate in middle- and late- childhood. Moreover, in all age groups, viewing behavior on the interactive lineup differed in children who made correct compared to incorrect suspect identifications. Our research suggests that the fundamental architecture of metacognition that has previously been evidenced in the developmental literature on relatively simple tasks, also underlies performance on complex tasks like an identification from a lineup. Moreover, our findings are practically important for legal professionals interpreting child memory evidence: Namely, identifications made by children can be reliable when appropriate metacognitive cues are used to assess accuracy.

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Section: Memory Monitoring In Childrensupporting

confidence: 77%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Child Witness Expressions of Certainty are Informative

Winsor¹,

Flowe²,

Seale-Carlisle³

et al. 2019

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Subjects were presented with a 5-point water-cup rating scale, ranging from not at all sure (empty cup) to very sure (full cup; see Figure 4A). The RA explained the water-cup rating scale following Bruer et al (2017). In short, subjects were told that the amount of water in the cup reflected how sure they were, with more water meaning that they were more sure.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Child witness expressions of certainty are informative.

Winsor¹,

Flowe²,

Seale-Carlisle

et al. 2021

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

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Where a licence is displayed above, please note the terms and conditions of the licence govern your use of this document.When citing, please reference the published version. Take down policyWhile the University of Birmingham exercises care and attention in making items available there are rare occasions when an item has been uploaded in error or has been deemed to be commercially or otherwise sensitive.

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“…The confidence procedure potentially provides a way to access that information from children. Bruer, Fitzgerald, Price, and Sauer (2017) recently provided preliminary evidence that classifications of suspect guilt calculated from children's confidence ratings for lineup members were of similar accuracy to children's accuracy in a traditional lineup procedure. However, the analysis approach we propose offers much more nuanced information about suspect guilt.…”

Section: The Present Studymentioning

confidence: 98%

Police lineups of the future?

Brewer

Weber

Guerin

2020

American Psychologist

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Problems associated with eyewitness identification decisions have long been highlighted by memory researchers (e.g., Loftus, 1979), with overwhelming evidence that witnesses can err, sometimes with disastrous consequences. Guided by the rationale that witnesses have access to potentially probative memorial information not captured by the traditional categorical lineup responses, an alternative procedure was examined in 6 experiments with adult (N ϭ 1,669) and child (N ϭ 273) witnesses. Instead of witnesses being asked to identify the offender from the lineup, they rated their confidence in the match between the offender and each lineup member and then variations in the maximum (max) confidence values assigned (i.e., the highest rated lineup members) were examined. Specifically, we evaluated how well max confidence values predicted suspect guilt or innocence. When suspects (guilty or innocent) in a lineup received the max confidence rating, the probability of guilt increased with the max. When the suspect received a rating lower than the max, they were generally more likely to be innocent. Max confidence patterns also predicted guilt where a traditional positive identification would have been unlikely: for example, when the max was low, when the witness gave the max to multiple lineup members, or when a filler received the max but the suspect also received a high rating. The data indicate that witnesses have access to probative memorial information often not captured by the traditional lineup responses when identifying someone or rejecting the lineup. Guidelines for the use and interpretation of this theoretically informed futuristic alternative to existing lineup procedures are provided.

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How sure are you that this is the man you saw? Child witnesses can use confidence judgments to identify a target.

Cited by 10 publications

References 64 publications

Child Witness Expressions of Certainty are Informative

Child Witness Expressions of Certainty are Informative

Child witness expressions of certainty are informative.

Police lineups of the future?

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