Forgetting the once-seen face: Estimating the strength of an eyewitness's memory representation.

Chris Solomon and Stuart Gibson are faculty members of the University of Kent and directors of VisionMetric Ltd. VisionMetric Ltd markets the EFIT-V and E-FIT facial composite systems. Solomon and Gibson's contribution to this work was to facilitate the proportion of the data collection that took place at the University of Kent, development of the software, and provision of software support. Data collection, analysis and interpretation were performed by Davis.The research was partly funded by an internal University of Greenwich grant to the first author.Facial composite lineup study 2 AbstractWitnesses to a crime may be asked to create a facial composite of the offender from memory. They may then view a suspect in a police lineup. Previous research on this topic has found both recognition impairment and enhancement following composite construction. In Experiment 1, creator-participants employed the holistic system EFIT-V or the feature-based E-FIT system to create a single composite, and in Experiment 2 creators constructed up to three EFIT-Vs. In both experiments, facial composite creators were one-and-a-half times more likely than non-composite creating controls to make correct target identifications from a video lineup. No between condition effects were found in target-absent trials in Experiment 1. The development of holistic facial composite systems has enhanced suspect identification rates in police investigations, and these results suggest that the use of such a system can also have a positive influence on a composite-creating witness' later recognition of the suspect.Facial composite lineup study 3

mentioning

confidence: 68%

The Positive Influence of Creating a Holistic Facial Composite on Video Line‐up Identification

Davis

Gibson

Solomon

2014

“…For example, witnessing crimes under poor lighting conditions (G. Loftus, 2010), for a short amount of time (Bornstein, Deffenbacher, Penrod, & McGorty, 2012), from great distances (Lampinen, Erickson, Moore, & Hittson, 2014), or committed by someone of a different race (Meissner & Brigham, 2001) can greatly reduce identification accuracy. Long delays (or retention intervals) between the crime event and memory test may also weaken eyewitness memory (Deffenbacher, Bornstein, McGorty, & Penrod, 2008;Wheatcroft, Wagstaff, & Manarin, 2015) and, further, increase the risk of exposure to post-event information and suggestion (e.g., media reports and conversations with other witnesses), which may distort witnesses' recollections of their experiences (E. Loftus, 2005).…”

Section: Eyewitness Memory and Juror Evaluations Of Witness Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Sensitizing Potential Jurors to Variations in Eyewitness Evidence Quality Using Counterfactual Thinking

Rodriguez

Berry

2016

Jurors often have difficulty evaluating eyewitness testimony. Counterfactual thinking is a type of mental simulation that informs causal inference. Encouraging jurors to think counterfactually about eyewitness factors may sensitize them to these factors' causal influence on eyewitness identification and testimony accuracy, improving their overall judgments (such as verdicts). One hundred twenty-one undergraduate participants were randomly assigned to read a scenario containing either high-quality or lowquality eyewitness evidence and to evaluate eyewitness factors adopting either their default or a counterfactual mindset via a question-order manipulation. Logistic regressions and analyses of variance revealed that a counterfactual mindset lowered perceptions of eyewitness accuracy and guilty verdicts (compared with the default mindset) when the evidence was poor; a counterfactual mindset, however, did not increase perceptions of accuracy and guilty verdicts when evidence was strong. We discuss possible mechanisms underlying these effects and identify several potential avenues for future research.

“…Dysart and Lindsay (2007b) concluded that delay adversely influences showups after 24 hours, and probably increases errors in both culprit-present and culprit-absent lineups, although other factors may have more impact. In a meta-analysis of 57 studies, Deffenbacher, Bornstein, McGorty and Penrod (2008) found a reliable association between longer retention intervals and lower identification accuracy of faces seen once. The effect was equally strong in face recognition paradigms (which usually required discrimination of many faces previously seen once from new faces), and in eyewitness identification paradigms, which usually require identification of a single person from a lineup.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Live Showups and Their Influence on a Subsequent Video Line‐up

Valentine

Davis

Memon

et al. 2011

A live showup (known as a street identification in the UK) allows the perpetrator to be identified shortly after a street crime. If the suspect disputes the identification, a video lineup often ensues. Four experiments examined the reliability of live showups and their influence on a subsequent video lineup using realistic procedures and conditions. Similar proportions of culprits and innocent suspects were identified from live showups and video lineups. Both culprits and innocent suspects previously identified were likely to be identified again in a subsequent lineup, with delays from a few minutes to a month. Only a weak effect of clothing bias was observed. There was strong evidence of commitment to a previous identification, but no reliable evidence of source monitoring errors. The results suggest that a live showup is not less fair than a lineup, but use of repeated identification procedures introduces an unfair bias against innocent suspects.Live showups and video lineups 4