Police lineups of the future?

Abstract

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.

Perpetrator pose reinstatement during a lineup test increases discrimination accuracy

“…Our results deepen our theoretical understanding of how faces are processed during learning and remembering, particularly in more naturalistic contexts. Our work follows the example of others in innovating lineup procedures 48 – 50 and answers the National Academy of Sciences’ 3 call for the use of psychological theory and innovative technology to improve the accuracy of eyewitness identification.…”

Testing the foundations of signal detection theory in recognition memory.

“…Typical paradigms have focused on single choices that participants may or may not make. Requesting participants to rank alternatives, even when they do not believe that a suspect is among them, can provide additional information that is valuable for the theoretical characterization of eyewitness judgments (see Brewer, Weber, & Guerin, 2020;Carlson et al, 2019).…”

Convicting with confidence? Why we should not over-rely on eyewitness confidence

“…In other words, police must utilise "best practices" for identification procedures (see Wells et al, 2020), and even then, we can never be certain in real-world cases that pristine identification procedures are truly unbiased (Sauer et al, 2019). In criminal cases, it may not be possible to assure that a lineup is fairly constructed so that the suspect does not stand out, or that the eyewitness does not assume that police are presenting the lineup because they caught the culprit (for more on the future of police lineups, see Brewer, Weber, & Guerin, 2020).…”