Viewing composite sketches: lineups and showups compared

Abstract

This study assesses the effect of high-and low-similarity composites on identification accuracy, using both lineups and showups. Participants witnessed a mock crime scene, viewed a composite of the perpetrator, then attempted an identification. The results indicate that witnesses are not overly influenced by low-similarity composites on subsequent identification accuracy. There was also no evidence that showups were less accurate identification procedures than lineups, across composition conditions. In fact, in perpetrator absent situations, showups were better identification procedures than lineups in terms of accuracy.

Does exposure to facial composites damage eyewitness memory? A comprehensive review

“…1 and 2), and Gibling and Davies (1988) described earlier did not report results separately for the no‐composite and accurate composite groups because they found no differences between these conditions. While the studies by Franzen and Sporer (1994a, 1994b) and Dekle (2006) did report results separately for these two conditions, there were also no differences between them. Therefore, to make results comparable across studies, Tables 3 and 4 only report the percentages averaged across the no composite and the accurate composite groups and compare them to the misleading composite group.…”

“…To sum up, the earlier studies by Davies and colleagues (the top four studies in Table 2) reported small reductions in hits as a function of viewing misleading composites. The studies by Wells et al (2005) and Kempen (2009) reported more substantial reductions in hits, while the studies by Franzen and Sporer (1994b) and by Dekle (2006) reported no effects, or only small effects, and the study by Franzen and Sporer (1994a) reported a nonsignificant tendency for higher hit rates in the misleading composite condition, contrary to expectation. Averaging across all 10 experiments, exposing participants to a misleading composite led to a 14% reduction in hits on TP lineups.…”

“…In a large‐scale study (Dekle, 2006), participants viewed a slide show of a staged theft and provided a written description of the target. One day later, they were either (a) not shown a composite (control condition), (b) shown an “unbiased” composite, or (c) shown a “biased” composite.…”

“…In the “biased” condition, similarity ratings indicated that composite 1 from the average description was most similar to a foil, not the perpetrator. In the “unbiased” condition, all members of the photospread “were about equally similar” to composite 2 (see Dekle, 2006, p. 387).…”

Prevenindo injustiças: como a psicologia do testemunho pode ajudar a compreender e prevenir o falso reconhecimento de suspeitos

“…O show-up equivale a um teste de verdadeiro ou falso, em que a testemunha deve comparar o rosto do suspeito com a representação mental do criminoso e responder se ambos são a mesma pessoa (Clark, 2012;Clark & Godfrey, 2009). Assim, o show-up é um procedimento indutivo pois dadas as limitações da memória humana descritas na seção de variáveis de estimação, o suspeito inocente pode ser reconhecido simplesmente por ser semelhante ao criminoso (e.g., ambos são carecas; Agricola, 2009;Eisen, Smith, Olaguez & Skerritt-Perta, 2017;Dekle, 2006;Fitzgerald & Price, 2015;Yarmey, Yarmey & Yarmey, 1996). O show-up não é recomendado uma vez que é um procedimento inerentemente sugestivo e seus resultados pouco confiáveis (Clark, 2012;Clark & Godfrey, 2009).…”