Observer judgments of identification accuracy are affected by non‐valid cues: A Brunswikian lens model analysis

Abstract

This study investigated persuasive effects of behavior cues on observer judgments of eyewitness identification decisions. Forty-eight positive identification statements (50% of which were objectively correct) were evaluated regarding witness likeability, trustworthiness, knowledge, and impression of confidence. Moreover, ratings of different speech style characteristics (e.g., hedges, hesitations, gestures, speech rate, and answer length) and of different person and event description qualities were collected. It was investigated (i) whether these cues were related to objective identification accuracy and (ii) whether observers used them to make their judgments and how they weighed them. Observers heavily relied on the impression of witness confidence and overestimated the discriminative value of several description qualities, although none of these cues was a valid indicator of identification accuracy. Effects of speech style characteristics depended on the presence of additional descriptions. Recommendations for the evaluation of identification decisions in criminal proceedings are discussed.Eyewitness testimony including identification decisions is often the only, or the major, source of evidence available in court and consequently serves as an essential basis for later convictions (Garrett, 2011). At trial, judges and/or jurors have to evaluate the accuracy of identification decisions to arrive at their verdicts. Importantly, it is not only a witness's misidentification per se that leads to judicial errors but rather the erroneous evaluation of these identification decisions that leads to wrongful convictions.Many studies have shown that observers' ability to discriminate between correct and incorrect identification decisions is limited, that is, their judgment accuracy is often no better than chance level (e.g., Beaudry et al., 2015;Brigham & Bothwell, 1983;Wells & Lindsay, 1983). Thus, to explain fact finders' judgment accuracy, it is necessary to get a deeper insight into observers' judgmental processes. In these evaluation processes, an identification decision serves as a persuasive message that affects fact finders' judgments. Many studies have examined the persuasive impact of various aspects of an identification decision on observer judgments (i.e., witnessing conditions, post-identification confidence, response latency, and self-reports of witnesses' decision processes; e.g., Dunning & Stern, 1994;Kaminski & Sporer, 2017;Neal, Christiansen, Bornstein, & Robicheaux, 2012a). In contrast, this study focused on the persuasive impact of different perceived behavior cues and quantitative and qualitative aspects of witnesses' descriptions of the perpetrator and the crime.Behavior cues have been extensively analyzed in other legal contexts like the detection of deception. Within the framework of the Brunswikian lens model (Brunswik, 1956(Brunswik, , 1965, Hartwig and Bond (2011) and others (e.g., Fiedler, 1989;Sporer & Küpper, 1995) contrasted observers' use of (behavioral) deception cues with their v...

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