Lineup Member Similarity Effects on Children's Eyewitness Identification

Fitzgerald, Ryan J.; Whiting, Brittany F.; Therrien, Natalie M.; Price, Heather L.

doi:10.1002/acp.3012

Cited by 11 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…This replicates previous findings obtained when similarity has been manipulated using the traditional dual-line-up paradigm (Fitzgerald, Whiting, Therrien, & Price, 2014;Lindsay & Wells, 1980). We know of only two studies that have manipulated the similarity between the innocent suspect and the fillers in a perpetrator-absent lineup.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

The single lineup paradigm: A new way to manipulate target presence in eyewitness identification experiments.

Oriet¹,

Fitzgerald²

2018

Law and Human Behavior

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The suspect in eyewitness lineups may be guilty or innocent. These possibilities are traditionally simulated in eyewitness identification studies using a dual-lineup paradigm: All witnesses observe the same perpetrator and then receive one of two lineups. In this paradigm, the suspect's guilt is manipulated by including the perpetrator in one lineup and an innocent suspect in the other. The lineup is then filled with people matched to either the suspect (resulting in different fillers in perpetrator-present and perpetrator-absent lineups) or to the perpetrator (resulting in the same fillers in each lineup). An inescapable feature of the dual-lineup paradigm is that the perpetrator-present and perpetrator-absent lineups differ not only in the suspect's guilt, but also in their composition. Here, we describe a single-lineup paradigm: Subjects observe one of two perpetrators and then all subjects receive the same lineup containing one of the perpetrators. This alternative paradigm allows manipulation of the suspect's guilt without changing the lineup's composition. In three experiments, we applied the single-lineup paradigm to explore suspect-filler similarity and consistently found that increasing similarity reduced perpetrator identifications but did little to prevent innocent suspect misidentifications. Conversely, when fillers were matched to the perpetrator using a dual-lineup paradigm, increasing similarity reduced identification of perpetrators and innocent suspects. This finding suggests that the effect of filler similarity may depend on the person to whom the fillers are matched. We suggest that the single-lineup paradigm is a more ecologically valid and better controlled approach to creating suspect-matched lineups in laboratory investigations of eyewitness memory than existing procedures. (PsycINFO Database Record

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

The single lineup paradigm: A new way to manipulate target presence in eyewitness identification experiments.

Oriet¹,

Fitzgerald²

2018

Law and Human Behavior

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“…More recently, researchers have used subjective ratings to manipulate similarity in lineups for child witnesses (Fitzgerald, Whiting, Therrien, & Price, 2014). When lineup member similarity was increased in Experiment 1, children were significantly less likely to identify the culprit (moderate ϭ .23 vs. high ϭ .07) and also significantly less likely to identify an innocent suspect (moderate ϭ .30 vs. high ϭ .04).…”

Section: Subjective Similarity Ratingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Suspect filler similarity in eyewitness lineups: A literature review and a novel methodology.

Fitzgerald¹,

Oriet²,

Price³

2015

Law and Human Behavior

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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.

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“…Finally, the diagnosticity ratio, which is the ratio of guilty to innocent suspect identifications (correct ID rate/false ID rate), has been typically used by researchers to evaluate lineup performance. Using this method, adults' lineup performance has been associated with a higher diagnosticity ratio than children's (6 -to-12 years), and therefore linked with better lineup performance (e.g., Fitzgerald, Whiting, Therrien, & Price, 2014). However, the diagnosticity ratio conflates memory sensitivity and response bias (see Mickes, et al, 2014).…”

Section: Roc Approach To Examining Age-related Differences In Id Accumentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Humphries

Flowe

2015

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

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In the basic face memory literature, support has been found for the late maturation hypothesis, which holds that face recognition ability is not fully developed until at least adolescence. Support for the late maturation hypothesis in the criminal lineup identification literature, however, has been equivocal, because of the analytic approach that has been used to examine age-related changes in identification performance. Recently, Receiver Operator Characteristics (ROC) analysis was applied for the first time in the adult eyewitness memory literature to examine whether memory sensitivity differs across different types of lineup tests (Gronlund et al. 2012;Mickes, Flowe, & Wixted, 2012). ROC analysis allows for the separation of memory sensitivity from response bias in the analysis of recognition data. Here, we make the first ROC-based comparison of adults' and children's (5-6 years and 9-10 years) memory performance on lineups by reanalysing data from Humphries, Holliday, & Flowe 3 (2012). In line with the late maturation hypothesis, memory sensitivity was significantly greater for adults compared to young children. Memory sensitivity for older children was similar to adults. The results indicate that the late maturation hypothesis can be generalized to account for age-related performance differences on an eyewitness memory task. The implications for developmental eyewitness memory research are discussed.

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Lineup Member Similarity Effects on Children's Eyewitness Identification

Cited by 11 publications

References 54 publications

The single lineup paradigm: A new way to manipulate target presence in eyewitness identification experiments.

The single lineup paradigm: A new way to manipulate target presence in eyewitness identification experiments.

Suspect filler similarity in eyewitness lineups: A literature review and a novel methodology.

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

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