Research on eyewitnesses has led to the development of a knowledge base about the factors that influence eyewitness identification accuracy and to changes to criminal justice policies concerning the collection of eyewitness identification evidence. In this review, we provide an overview of the field of eyewitness identifications and suggest future directions for research. First, we provide the context for the study of eyewitness identifications. Second, we review a sample of factors that affect the accuracy of eyewitness identifications, with attention to both the conditions under which crimes occur and the manner in which identification tests are conducted. Third, we review several findings about which there is some contemporary debate or controversy. Finally, we highlight opportunities for further research on eyewitness identifications by drawing upon basic research in social and cognitive psychology and lessons from actual cases.

This article examined the feasibility of a computer-based program that alleviates the human resource challenge associated with blind photoarrays (photoarrays in which the investigator is blind to the suspect’s identity). Students watched videotaped crimes and attempted to identify the perpetrators from photoarays conducted by a “virtual officer” who responds to simple voice commands or by research assistants playing the role of investigators. The student investigators and virtual officer produced comparable identification performance and student reactions to the photoarray procedures. Results of this evaluation study are encouraging, and the authors recommend further laboratory and field testing of the virtual officer technology for conducting blind lineups.

No abstract

A public Web site (Goolkasian & Van Wallendael, 2001), established to provide educational materials in cognitive science, served as the primary text for an interdisciplinary course. We tracked student use of the Web site online and with self-report questionnaires. A majority (74%) of the students rated the Web site to be as useful or more useful than a traditional textbook. Although time spent online with the Web materials predicted scores for 2 of the 4 exams, class attendance was the strongest predictor of exam performance.Web-based resources for college teaching have evolved together with the Internet. According to Wolfe (2001b), 40% of college courses today list Web resources in the syllabus, and over 25% of college courses have their own Web pages. The Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning (Malloy & Hanley, 2001) provided a comprehensive collection of learning materials for psychology instruction, indexing more than 260 Web sites related to psychology. Some major issues are the usefulness and effectiveness of the sites for instruction in psychology. Although much of the debate is over the use of Web materials for distance education (e.g., Lawson, 2000;Waschull, 2001), there are concerns about student willingness to use Web-based materials in lieu of traditional textbooks.Studies show positive learning outcomes from online exercises, tutorials, and virtual laboratories in a variety of fields. Cao and Bengu (2000) evaluated a Web-based intelligent tutoring tool for a general chemistry laboratory. This tool integrated an interactive, online laboratory manual with text material. Content of the Web materials was also available to the control group in printed form. Cao and Bengu found that students who used the Web tools were better at problem solving than control students who had not used the Web tools. Aberson, Berger, Healy, Kyle, and Romero (2000) evaluated a Web-based tutorial on the central limit theorem; the tutorial allowed students to draw samples of varying sizes and explore the shapes of the resulting distributions. Aberson et al. found that test scores improved (relative to a pretest) at a rate comparable to that obtained from attending a lecture on the same content.However, some researchers have questioned the usefulness of Web-based learning tools. Eveland and Dunwoody (2001) tested recognition memory for information presented in traditional print versions, in linear Web formats (pages of information were linked in a specific order), and in nonlinear Web formats (topics could be examined in any order). These researchers found that learning from print was better than

One solution to mistaken identification by a crime's victims and eyewitnesses is to use a virtual officer to conduct identification procedures. Results from a study comparing a virtual officer with a live human investigator indicate that the virtual officer performs comparably to the human in terms of identification accuracy, emotional affect, and ease of use.