SummaryAdministering lineups “blind”—whereby the administrator does not know the identity of the suspect—is considered part of best practices for lineups. The current study tests whether non‐blind lineup administrators would evaluate ambiguous eyewitness statements, and the witness himself or herself, in a manner consistent with their beliefs. College students (n = 219) were told the identity of the suspect or not before administering a lineup to a confederate‐witness who made an ambiguous response (e.g., “it could be #3 but I'm not sure”). When ambiguous witness statements matched administrators' beliefs regarding the suspect (compared with when they mismatched administrators' beliefs, or administrators had no belief), administrators (a) were significantly more likely to record the statement as an identification (as opposed to a “not sure” response); (b) were significantly less likely to make statements that might lead the witness away from the suspect; and (c) evaluated the witness's viewing conditions significantly more positively.

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Past research has shown that innocent alibi providers often fail to produce physical evidence to support their alibi. The current study examined whether chronological recall instructions and perspective-taking improved recall for corroborating physical evidence. This research employed a 2 (Recall Instructions: chronological recall vs. free recall) × 3 (Perspective: experimenter vs. detective vs. undirected) between-subjects design. Undergraduates (N = 184) were recruited for a 2-part study where they engaged in activities that generated various types of physical evidence (Time 1) and were asked 1 week later to provide an alibi and to report corroborating physical evidence (Time 2). Alibi providers were unable to exhaustively recall pieces of evidence to support their story. Chronological recall instructions significantly increased the quantity of physical evidence recalled, and the experimenter perspective increased recall of experimenter-accessible physical evidence, but only in the absence of chronological recall. The detective perspective did not influence the quantity of recalled evidence. These results provide support for a system variable approach to the collection of alibi evidence and suggest an intervention that improves recall of physical evidence that can corroborate innocent suspects’ alibis.