Eyewitness identification speed: Slow identifications from highly confident eyewitnesses hurt perceptions of their testimony.

Dodson, Chad S.; Garrett, Brandon L.; Kafadar, Karen; Yaffe, Joanne

doi:10.1016/j.jarmac.2020.08.015

Cited by 9 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Consequently, individuals also rate the eyewitnesses as less accurate in their identification, and judge the suspect as less likely to be guilty, when eyewitnesses provide featural statements. Another factor that affects how individuals view eyewitness confidence is identification speed (Dodson et al, 2021). Mock jurors rate eyewitnesses who express high confidence in an identification as less accurate, and the suspect as less likely to be guilty, if the eyewitness states that they made the identification “after a while” rather than “instantly.” Further studies on eyewitness testimony variables that moderate perceptions of eyewitness confidence and corresponding judgments of eyewitness accuracy and defendant guilt would aid our understanding of how individuals make judgments regarding eyewitness confidence.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Eyewitness confidence and mock juror decisions of guilt: A meta-analytic review.

Slane¹,

Dodson²

2022

Law and Human Behavior

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Objective: We investigated the impact of eyewitness confidence on the following dependent variables: (a) guilty or not-guilty verdict; (b) judgments of guilt as measured on a scale; and (c) mock jurors' perception of the accuracy of an eyewitness's identification. In addition, we examined two potential moderators of the effects of eyewitness confidence: (a) whether the eyewitness expressed confidence at trial versus during the initial lineup identification and (b) whether the eyewitness provided a numerical versus a verbal statement of confidence. Hypotheses: We expected all analyses to reveal that highly confident eyewitnesses are more persuasive to mock jurors than are eyewitnesses with lower confidence (Hypothesis 1). We expected eyewitness confidence at trial (relative to at identification) to be more persuasive to mock jurors (Hypothesis 2). We expected numerical expressions of confidence to be more persuasive to mock jurors than verbal confidence expressions (Hypothesis 3). Method: We conducted a meta-analysis of 35 studies from 20 published papers and seven theses or dissertations to quantify the effect of eyewitness confidence on juror judgments and investigated the influence of two primary moderator variables, time of confidence and format of confidence expression. Results: All analyses revealed an effect of eyewitness confidence on mock juror decisions (gs = .21-.36). Our moderator analysis showed that the timing of the confidence statement (identification vs. trial) did not affect the influence of eyewitness confidence on mock jurors' judgments of guilt or accuracy. The influence of eyewitness confidence was not moderated by verbal versus numerical expressions of confidence. Conclusions: Although eyewitness confidence is persuasive to mock jurors, the size of this effect is modest. Moreover, verbal and numerical expressions of confidence have similar persuasive effects, and mock jurors do not appear to be sensitive to the likely difference in evidentiary strength of eyewitness confidence expressed at the initial identification versus at trial. Public Significance StatementHighly confident eyewitnesses are persuasive to jurors, but eyewitness misidentification is a leading cause of wrongful imprisonment. Although confidence at the time of an initial identification from a lineup can be predictive of eyewitnesses' accuracy, confidence at trial is typically not. Our findings suggest that mock jurors are not sensitive to this distinction and that they weigh eyewitness confidence at trial as strongly as they weigh confidence at the time of the identification. Understanding how jurors weigh eyewitness confidence from these two time points can promote new ways of instructing jurors to properly assess eyewitness testimony.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Eyewitness confidence and mock juror decisions of guilt: A meta-analytic review.

Slane¹,

Dodson²

2022

Law and Human Behavior

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“…Hence, it may be difficult for the legal system to determine a precise cutoff for what constitutes a high level of verbal confidence. Moreover, research suggests that contextual information, such as eyewitnesses’ justifications for their identification decisions (e.g., Dodson & Dobolyi, 2015), information about whether the eyewitness picked the suspect or a filler (Grabman & Dodson, 2019), and information about the speed of the eyewitness’s identification decision (Dodson et al, in press) can influence interpretations of eyewitnesses’ verbal confidence statements, further complicating legal determinations of what constitutes a high-verbal-confidence identification.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Eyewitnesses’ free-report verbal confidence statements are diagnostic of accuracy.

Smalarz¹,

Yang²,

Wells³

2021

Law and Human Behavior

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Objectives: We assessed recent policy recommendations to collect eyewitnesses’ confidence statements in witnesses’ own words as opposed to numerically. We conducted an experiment to test whether eyewitnesses’ free-report verbal confidence statements are as diagnostic of eyewitness accuracy as their numeric confidence statements and whether the diagnostic utility of eyewitnesses’ verbal and numeric confidence statements varies across witnessing conditions. Hypotheses: We hypothesized that eyewitnesses’ verbal and numeric confidence statements are both significantly associated with identification accuracy among choosers and that their diagnostic utility holds across varying witnessing conditions. Method: In the first phase of the experiment, eyewitnesses (N = 4,795 MTurkers; 48.8% female; 50.8% male; .3% other; age M = 36.9) viewed a videotaped mock-crime and made an identification decision from a culprit-present or culprit-absent lineup. We manipulated witnessing conditions at encoding and retrieval to obtain varied levels of memory performance. In the second phase of the experiment, evaluators (N = 456 MTurkers; 35.5% female; 62.7% male .4% other; age M = 36.5) translated witnesses’ verbal confidence statements to a numeric estimate and we used calibration and confidence-accuracy characteristic analyses to compare the diagnosticity of witnesses’ verbal and numeric confidence statements across the two levels of memory performance. Results: Witnesses’ verbal and numeric confidence statements were significantly and nondifferentially diagnostic of eyewitness accuracy for both choosers and nonchoosers, and their diagnostic utility held across variations in witnessing conditions. Conclusions: These findings suggest the applied utility of collecting either verbal or numeric confidence statements from eyewitnesses immediately following an identification decision.

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“…Reflector variables refer to behaviors emitted by an eyewitness during an identification procedure that covary with (or reflect) accuracy (Quigley-McBride & Wells, 2023; Smith & Wells, 2023; Wells, 2020). Laypersons perceive high-confidence suspect identifications as more likely to be accurate than low-confidence suspect identifications and fast suspect identifications as more likely to be accurate than slow suspect identifications (Dodson et al, 2021; Garrett et al, 2020, Slane & Dodson, 2022). In fact, laypersons will even discount a high-confidence suspect identification if it took the witness a long time to make that identification decision (Dodson et al, 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lay (mis)perceptions of suspect-identification accuracy from biased and unbiased lineups.

Ying¹,

Smith²,

Wells³

2023

Psychology, Public Policy, and Law

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Suspect identifications from unbiased lineups (fair lineups) are more accurate than suspect identifications from biased lineups (Wixted & Wells, 2017). We examined whether laypersons were sensitive to the fact that suspect-identification accuracy is higher for unbiased than for biased lineups. Laypersons were presented with biased and unbiased lineups, told who the witness identified, and asked to rate the likely accuracy of the identification. Over the course of nine experiments (N = 1,851), laypersons demonstrated a robust biased-lineup preference effect, in which they incorrectly judged suspect-identification accuracy as higher for biased than for unbiased lineups. This effect occurred even though laypersons were sensitive to lineup fairness and persisted even when participants were provided with the type of information needed to understand how lineups work. The biased-lineup preference effect was eliminated—but not reversed—when participants were (a) primed to rate lineup fairness prior to assessing suspect-identification accuracy and (b) provided with a comprehensive narrative explanation of how lineups work. Preference for the unbiased lineup emerged only when participants were explicitly told that accuracy was higher for unbiased lineups. Laypersons showed limited ability to reason correctly about suspect-identification accuracy from biased and unbiased lineups.

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Eyewitness identification speed: Slow identifications from highly confident eyewitnesses hurt perceptions of their testimony.

Cited by 9 publications

References 37 publications

Eyewitness confidence and mock juror decisions of guilt: A meta-analytic review.

Eyewitness confidence and mock juror decisions of guilt: A meta-analytic review.

Eyewitnesses’ free-report verbal confidence statements are diagnostic of accuracy.

Lay (mis)perceptions of suspect-identification accuracy from biased and unbiased lineups.

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