Unconscious transference and characteristics of accurate and inaccurate eyewitnesses

Abstract

Two experiments involving 349 subjects were conducted to evaluate the incidence of unconscious-transference (UT) in eyewitness identification performance. Little conclusive evidence was obtained for UT using either a video-taped event or a live staged event However, negative cross-race effects were observed as well u null relations between both witness-reported confidence and witness-reported goodness-of-view with accuracy. High “self-monitors” showed the greatest probability of hits from target-present photoarrays whereas politically conservative subjects showed the greatest probability of false alarms from target-absent photoarrays. Implications for the evaluation of eyewitness evidence are discussed.

Key Words:

• eyewitness
• face identification
• memory