Predicting high confidence errors in eyewitness memory: The role of face recognition ability, decision-time, and justifications.

Abstract

Increasing research shows that high eyewitness confidence at the time of an initial identification is a strong predictor of accuracy (Wixted & Wells, 2017). However, as with all forms of criminal evidence, this relationship is imperfect. This study addresses whether there are variables that systematically influence the rate of high confidence misidentifications. Notably, this is the first study to document the influence of face recognition ability on the confidence-accuracy relationship. Participants viewed photos of individuals of their same race or a different race and performed a lineup recognition test after either a 5-min (n = 277) or 1-day (n = 292) delay. High confidence identification errors were more likely when (a) individuals are worse face recognizers, (b) decision-times are slow, and (c) responses are justified with references to familiarity (e.g., "He looks familiar").

The sleepy eyewitness: Self-reported sleep predicts eyewitness memory.

“…Semmler et al (2018) argued that estimator variables may not be problematic as long as the eyewitness provides an immediate high-confidence suspect ID under pristine conditions. However, more recent research shows that certain variables can negatively impact the CA relationship even under pristine testing conditions, such as distance (e.g., Lockamyeir et al, 2020) and poor face recognition ability (Grabman et al, 2019; see Giacona et al, 2021). Our results are mixed regarding the influence of self-reported sleep on the CA relationship, and we recommend additional research on this important issue.…”

Face value? How jurors evaluate eyewitness face recognition ability.

“…These research findings may not be intuitive to lay individuals: Perhaps expert testimony could guide the use of face memory ability and confidence in a way more consistent with the existing research. Grabman et al's (2019) work suggests a more complex pattern is the most accurate interpretation of face memory ability and confidence, but we do not expect mock-jurors to understand this information to quite that extent. If the expert's testimony is effective, we expect the confidence effect to persist among those who received the expert opinion, even when the eyewitness reports strong face memory skills.…”

“…Even after removing the high-confidence, in-court identification, we again found no significant difference in judgments about the defendant’s guilt when the eyewitness reported high or low confidence if the eyewitness also reported a high CFMT score. This result is troubling because confidence statements from people with high CFMT scores are better indicators of accuracy than those from people with poor face recognition (Grabman et al, 2019), so a juror should interpret low confidence from an eyewitness with a high CFMT score as an indication that the identification might be inaccurate. These research findings may not be intuitive to lay individuals: Perhaps expert testimony could guide the use of face memory ability and confidence in a way more consistent with the existing research.…”

“…Therefore, we found evidence that face memory information appears particularly probative to lay persons when it provides objective evidence that an eyewitness is skilled at recognizing faces. This pattern of responses is troubling given that people with good CFMT scores are better at judging their own performance during face memory tasks than people with lower CFMT scores (Gettleman et al, 2021; Grabman et al, 2019). That is, an eyewitness who is both unsure about their identification and scores high on the CFMT is, indeed, unlikely to have made a correct identification.…”

Eyewitness confidence and decision time reflect identification accuracy in actual police lineups.

“…In general, fast decisions are more likely to be accurate because speed is associated with automatic processes or fluency-stimuli that are quick and easy to process feel that way because they are familiar or have been encountered before (e.g., Kelley & Lindsay, 1993;Ratcliff & Starns, 2013). In line with the general recognition literature, existing lab studies show that eyewitnesses who make fast decisions during an identification procedure are more likely to be accurate than eyewitnesses who are slower (e.g., Brewer & Weber, 2008;Dunning & Perretta, 2002;Grabman et al, 2019;Sauerland & Sporer, 2009). This holds whether the crime event was live (e.g., Sporer, 1992), a video (e.g., Weber et al, 2004), or a series of photos (Dobolyi & Dodson, 2018), and whether the identification procedure was a lineup (Smith et al, 2000) or a showup (Sauerland et al, 2018).…”