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There are substantive differences in international preferences in the medium through which eyewitness identification lineups are administered, but these jurisdictional preferences are not based in evidence. Regardless of whether one medium produces greater identification accuracy, it is the perception of evidence strength by triers of fact that determines its influence in judicial proceedings. Yet, we know little about how lineup mediums are perceived by potential triers of fact. Four-hundred and six undergraduate students viewed a video interview of an eyewitness describing an identification that took place with one of three different lineup mediums (live, video, photo) to compare their relative persuasiveness. Participants also directly compared mediums. There was a clear preference for evidence elicited from live lineups in direct comparisons, but not in the experimental conditions. Live lineup superiority beliefs exist in policy and, these data show, in the beliefs of potential witnesses and triers of fact when various lineup mediums are directly compared.

Adults with posttraumatic stress disorder from childhood trauma (ch-PTSD) described their 'worst' traumatic event (a single or repeated event) pre-post treatment for PTSD during an international clinical trial. The memory reports were coded for specificity (Episodic vs. General) and level of detail. Repeated event (RE) narratives contained more generic and fewer episodic references but no more details than memories describing single events (SEs). Analysis of a subset of the sample's posttreatment memory reports found 38% of the information units were consistent with the pre-treatment narrative, 38% were omitted, 21% were new details and 2% were changes. The SE and RE groups did not differ on consistency. The data provide a unique insight into single versus repeated event memory reporting in a clinical sample with PTSD from childhood trauma.

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