Replicating distinctive facial features in lineups: identification performance in young versus older adults

Abstract

Criminal suspects with distinctive facial features, such as tattoos or bruising, may stand out in a police lineup. To prevent suspects from being unfairly identified on the basis of their distinctive feature, the police often manipulate lineup images to ensure that all of the members appear similar. Recent research shows that replicating a distinctive feature across lineup members enhances eyewitness identification performance, relative to removing that feature on the target. In line with this finding, the present study demonstrated that with young adults (n 0 60; mean age 0 20), replication resulted in more target identifications than did removal in target-present lineups and that replication did not impair performance, relative to removal, in target-absent lineups. Older adults (n 0 90; mean age 0 74) performed significantly worse than young adults, identifying fewer targets and more foils; moreover, older adults showed a minimal benefit from replication over removal. This pattern is consistent with the associative deficit hypothesis of aging, such that older adults form weaker links between faces and their distinctive features. Although replication did not produce much benefit over removal for older adults, it was not detrimental to their performance. Therefore, the results suggest that replication may not be as beneficial to older adults as it is to young adults and demonstrate a new practical implication of age-related associative deficits in memory.

Unfair Lineups Make Witnesses More Likely to Confuse Innocent and Guilty Suspects

“…Two face-recognition studies have suggested that replicating distinctive features is better than removing them (Badham, Wade, Watts, Woods, & Maylor, 2013;Zarkadi et al, 2009); at first glance, our findings appear to conflict with these results. Zarkadi et al, for example, found that replication increased correct identifications by approximately 20% in target-present lineups, whereas we found that replication and concealment techniques were equally effective.…”

The impact of beliefs about face recognition ability on memory retrieval processes in young and older adults

“…The impact that negative information has on motivation and decision strategies is in need of further research. Additionally, we replicated previous findings that older adults are more likely to engage in familiarity-based processing rather than itemspecific processing during memory retrieval (Badham et al, 2012;Bastin & Van der Linden, 2003;Edmonds et al, 2011;Howard et al, 2006;Jennings & Jacoby, 1997;Schacter, et al, 1997). Increased use of item-specific information is associated with enhanced recognition performance (Engelkamp, Biegelmann, & McDaniel, 1998;McCabe, Presmanes, Robertson, & Smith, 2004), but the effect size was relatively small.…”

“…Research has shown that participants engage in more item-specific compared to familiarity-based processing when they have adopt a relatively conservative response criteria at test (Israel & Schacter, 1997;Schacter, Israel, & Racine, 1999). Additionally, older adults are more likely to engage in familiarity-based processing rather than item-specific processing during memory retrieval (Badham et al, 2012;Bastin & Van der Linden, 2003;Edmonds et al, 2011;Howard et al, 2006;Jennings & Jacoby, 9 1997;Schacter, Koutstaal, Johnson, Gross, & Angell, 1997). Therefore, we expected that older adults in the present study would engage in more familiarity-based processing than item-specific processing compared to young adults.…”

“All I remember is the black eye”: A distinctive facial feature harms eyewitness identification

“…However, 30% of police officers reported that they often did nothing about the distinctive feature prior to placing the suspect in a lineup. Zarkadi, Wade, and Stewart (2009) compared two methods for handling distinctive features in lineups: replication versus removal (see also Badham, Wade, Watts, Woods, & Maylor, 2013). After studying a series of faces, some of which had a distinctive feature (e.g., black eye), participants made an ID decision for a series of replication and removal lineups.…”