“All I remember is the black eye”: A distinctive facial feature harms eyewitness identification

Abstract

Many crimes occur in which a perpetrator has a distinctive facial feature, such as a tattoo or black eye, but few eyewitness identification (ID) studies have involved such a feature. We conducted an experiment to determine how eyewitness ID performance is impacted by a distinctive facial feature, and how police could deal with this issue. Participants (N = 4,218) studied a target face with or without a black eye, and later viewed a simultaneous photo lineup either containing the target or not. For those who saw a target with a black eye, this feature was either replicated among all lineup members or was removed. The black eye harmed empirical discriminability regardless of replication or removal, which did not differ. However, participants responded more conservatively when the black eye was removed, compared to replication. Lastly, immediate confidence was consistently indicative of accuracy.

Was he the perpetrator or a bystander? Testing theories of unconscious transference for eyewitness identification.

“…This sample size is consistent with several additional studies from the eyewitness field (e.g., Baldassari et al, 2023; M. A. Carlson, Carlson, & Fitzsimmons, 2023; Jones et al, 2020; Lockamyeir et al, 2020, 2021; Seale-Carlisle et al, 2019). As such, our final average sample size per cell ( n = 564) only slightly exceeded this goal.…”

Testing encoding specificity and the diagnostic feature-detection theory of eyewitness identification, with implications for showups, lineups, and partially disguised perpetrators

“…The lack of response bias consideration confounds the data and can result in misleading conclusions regarding the ID performance of the eyewitnesses. Because of this issue, among others, ROC is the preferred method for analyzing ID performance in the eyewitness domain (National Research Council 2014 ), and its use has quickly accelerated over the last decade (e.g., Carlson and Carlson 2014 ; Carlson et al 2019 ; Colloff and Wixted 2019 ; Gronlund et al 2014 ; Jones et al 2020 ; Meisters et al 2018 ; Mickes et al 2017 ; Wetmore et al 2015b ; Wooten et al 2020 ). 7 ROC analysis has been used to demonstrate several DFT predictions, such as the superiority of fair simultaneous lineups compared to showups (e.g., Wooten et al 2020 ), sequential lineups (e.g., Carlson and Carlson 2014 ), and biased lineups (e.g., Wetmore et al 2015b ).…”

A stronger memory for the perpetrator may attenuate effects of the identification procedure on eyewitness accuracy

“…Our preregistration specified a minimum of 12,000 participants for two reasons. First, we utilized Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis, and recent research applying this analytic method to eyewitness ID data involved at least 500 participants per cell of a between‐subjects design (e.g., Jones et al, 2020; Lockamyeir et al, 2020, 2021; Seale‐Carlisle et al, 2019). Second, our between‐subjects design contains 24 cells: 2 (target encoding time: 2, 8 s) × 3 (ID procedure: showup, 3‐person simultaneous lineup, 6‐person simultaneous lineup) × 2 (match to target:: fillers 1 of high versus low similarity to the target) × 2 (target presence in ID procedure: present or absent).…”

“…analysis, and recent research applying this analytic method to eyewitness ID data involved at least 500 participants per cell of a betweensubjects design (e.g., Jones et al, 2020;Lockamyeir et al, 2020Lockamyeir et al, , 2021Seale-Carlisle et al, 2019). Second, our between-subjects design contains 24 cells: 2 (target encoding time: 2, 8 s) Â 3 (ID procedure:…”