The effect of lineup member similarity on recognition accuracy in simultaneous and sequential lineups.

Abstract

The effect of lineup member similarity on recognition accuracy in simultaneous and sequential lineups. Lineup Member Similarity 1 AbstractTwo experiments investigated whether remembering is affected by the similarity of the study face relative to the alternatives in a lineup. In simultaneous and sequential lineups, choice rates and false alarms were larger in low compared to high similarity lineups, indicating criterion placement was affected by lineup similarity structure (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2, foil choices and similarity ranking data for target present lineups were compared to responses made when the target was removed from the lineup (only the 5 foils were presented). The results indicated that although foils were selected more often in target-removed lineups in the simultaneous compared to the sequential condition, responses shifted from the target to one of the foils at equal rates across lineup procedures. Lineup Similarity Effects 2The Effect of Lineup Member Similarity on Recognition Accuracy in Simultaneous and Sequential LineupsMuch psychological research over the last 25 years has demonstrated the conditions under which eyewitnesses might be prone to making identification errors. Based on what we have learned from these studies, psychologists have called on the legal system to make procedural changes aimed at reducing the rate of mistaken identification (Wells et al., 1998). In particular,psychologists have begun to recommend the use of the sequential lineup over the traditional simultaneous lineup as a means of reducing false identifications (e.g., Lindsay et al., 1991;Wells et al. 1998).The sequential procedure differs from a simultaneous lineup in a number of respects. In a simultaneous lineup, witnesses are shown at once an array of faces, which includes the suspect along with persons known by the police to be innocent (foils). In a sequential lineup, the faces are viewed one at a time, and for each face the witness makes a yes/no decision. The next picture is displayed if the photo is rejected by the witness, and once a photo has been rejected, the witness is not allowed to see it again. The sequential lineup test continues until a face is positively identified as the culprit. Across laboratory studies, it has been shown that by switching to sequential lineups, identifications of both "guilty" and "innocent" suspects are reduced, though false identifications of suspects are reduced to a larger extent (see Steblay et al., 2001 for a meta-analytic comparison of simultaneous and sequential lineups).One explanation that has been proposed to account for the differences in accuracy observed between the two procedures is the relative-absolute judgment model (Wells et al., 1998).According to this model, positive identifications are higher in simultaneous lineups because witnesses can see all of the alternatives when making their identification decision, and as a Lineup Similarity Effects 3 result, are biased toward making a positive identification. Simultaneous witnesses will likely make a posi...

An examination of simultaneous lineup identification decision processes using eye tracking

“…Arguably, the faces in many of these studies are more artificial looking than that those produced by FACES. We have replicated effects with FACES that have been obtained with more naturalistic faces, including inversion effects ) and the sequential lineup advantage (Flowe & Ebbesen, 2007).…”

Eyewitness identification evidence and innocence risk

“…It can, of course, also be described as a simple criterion shift (Clark, 2005;Flowe & Ebbesen, 2007;Malpass & Devine, 1981;Meissner, Tredoux, Parker, & MacLin, 2005).…”

“…In a sequential lineup, the witness also may note that number 3 looks more similar to the perpetrator than do lineup members 1 and 2 but may pass on identifying number 3 because an even better match may be yet to come. Some (Flowe & Ebbesen, 2007 have argued that sequential lineups may not suppress relative judgments; they may simply induce witnesses to use a higher criterion.…”

The effects of target discriminability and criterion placement on accuracy rates in sequential and simultaneous target-present lineups

“…Target discriminability refers to the degree to which the target matches the study face (or perpetrator) in memory. Target discriminability can be affected in a number of ways, including manipulating the similarity of the lineup target to the study face (Flowe & Ebbesen, 2007), or by varying the duration of exposure to the study face (Meissner et Target Discriminability and Criterion Placement 6 al., 2005). As the target is made more similar to the study face or studied for a longer period, the probability that the test faces matches the memory representation of the study face should increase.…”

“…Second, composite drawings of faces have revealed insights about face processing (e.g., Leder & Bruce, 2000;Tanaka & Farah, 1993;Tanaka & Sengco, 1997), and the effects have not differed depending on whether composite faces or photographs of faces were used as stimuli. Third, sequential superiority effects (Flowe & Ebbesen, 2007) and inversion effects (Howarth & Flowe, 2009) have been obtained with FACES. Taken together, these findings indicate that the composite drawing face stimuli that we used in the present study are processed in a similar manner as photographs of actual faces.…”