Appearances can be deceiving: how naturalistic changes to target appearance impact on lineup-based decision-making

Figures & data

Table 1. Proportions and frequencies (n) of target present and absent identification decisions as a function of appearance, procedure, and position.

			Present % (n)			Absent % (n)
			Target ID	Foil ID	No ID	TR ID	Foil ID	No ID
No change	Simultaneous	Early	0.71 (60)	0.11 (9)	0.18 (15)	0.07 (6)	0.20 (17)	0.73 (61)
		Late	0.66 (58)	0.13 (11)	0.22 (19)	0.06 (5)	0.30 (26)	0.65 (57)
	Sequential	Early	0.71 (62)	0.07 (6)	0.23 (20)	0.08 (7)	0.19 (17)	0.73 (65)
		Late	0.56 (50)	0.22 (20)	0.22 (20)	0.07 (6)	0.27 (24)	0.66 (59)
Change	Simultaneous	Early	0.33 (29)	0.17 (15)	0.50 (44)	0.05 (4)	0.26 (23)	0.69 (61)
		Late	0.34 (29)	0.18 (15)	0.48 (40)	0.06 (5)	0.21 (18)	0.73 (61)
	Sequential	Early	0.37 (33)	0.17 (15)	0.47 (42)	0.06 (5)	0.26 (23)	0.69 (62)
		Late	0.22 (19)	0.18 (16)	0.60 (53)	0.06 (5)	0.21 (18)	0.74 (65)

Note: All proportions are rounded to two decimal places. TR = Target replacement.

Table 2. Mean (SD) post-decisional confidence in target present and absent identification decisions as a function of appearance, procedure, and position.

			Present Mean (SD)			Absent Mean (SD)
			Target ID	Foil ID	No ID	TR ID	Foil ID	No ID
No change	Simultaneous	Early	4.57 (1.29)	3.22 (1.30)	3.93 (1.58)	4.34 (1.38)	3.29 (1.49)	2.33 (1.37)
		Late	4.55 (1.35)	3.64 (1.21)	3.68 (1.42)	4.32 (1.34)	2.85 (1.16)	2.80 (1.30)
	Sequential	Early	4.76 (1.14)	3.50 (0.84)	3.05 (1.70)	3.57 (1.61)	3.18 (0.95)	4.57 (0.54)
		Late	4.96 (1.07)	3.35 (1.18)	3.45 (1.96)	3.81 (1.60)	3.54 (1.06)	3.67 (1.37)
Change	Simultaneous	Early	4.28 (1.28)	2.73 (0.96)	4.36 (1.46)	4.48 (1.26)	2.78 (1.70)	2.75 (0.96)
		Late	3.79 (1.40)	3.13 (1.60)	4.28 (1.47)	4.64 (1.35)	2.78 (1.74)	3.80 (1.48)
	Sequential	Early	4.30 (1.13)	3.53 (1.18)	3.93 (1.79)	4.10 (1.54)	3.26 (1.45)	4.20 (1.10)
		Late	4.53 (.91)	3.81 (1.17)	3.49 (1.73)	4.43 (1.60)	3.94 (1.00)	3.20 (0.84)

Note: The scale ranged from 1 (uncertain) to 6 (absolutely certain). TR = Target replacement.

Table 3. Multi-d’ as a function of appearance, procedure, and position.

			d’(TFp)	d’(RFa)	d’(Fa Fp)	d’(TR)
No change	Simultaneous	Early	1.81	−0.63	0.41	2.03
		Late	1.56	−1.04	0.61	1.99
	Sequential	Early	2.03	−0.54	0.62	1.95
		Late	0.90	−0.88	0.15	1.64
Change	Simultaneous	Early	0.51	−1.05	0.31	1.25
		Late	0.52	−0.77	0.13	1.16
	Sequential	Early	0.63	−0.94	0.31	1.25
		Late	0.12	−0.76	0.08	0.80

Note: d’(TFp) = capacity to discriminate between targets and foils in TP lineups; d’(RFa) = capacity to discriminate between replacements and foils in TA lineups; d’(FaFp) = differential appeal of foils in TA lineups from foils in TP lineups; and d’(TR) = capacity to discriminate between targets and replacements.

Figure 1. Confidence accuracy characteristic curves (generated using the Python toolkit, Pywitness; Mickes et al., 2022) for appearance (A), procedure (B) and position (C). Note the CAC curves do not have error bars because too few incorrect replacement IDs were made at all levels of confidence to compute stable bootstrap estimates. On the x-axis, numbers 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 denote, low, medium and high confidence, respectively.

Table

Condition	Lineup 1	Lineup 2	Lineup 3	Lineup 4
1	TP-NC-E	TA-C-L	TP-C-L	TA-NC-E
2	TP-NC-L	TA-C-E	TP-C-E	TA-NC-L
3*	TA-C-E	TP-NC-L	TA-NC-L	TP-C-E
4*	TA-C-L	TP-NC-E	TA-NC-E	TP-C-L
5	TP-C-E	TA-NC-L	TP-NC-L	TA-C-E
6	TP-C-L	TA-NC-E	TP-NC-E	TA-NC-L
7	TA-NC-E	TA-C-L	TA-C-L	TP-NC-E
8	TA-NC-L	TA-C-E	TA-C-E	TP-NC-L

Note: TP/TA = target present/absent, NC/C = no change/change, and E/L = early/late position. *In the sequential lineup condition, a Qualtrics coding error occurred in viewing conditions 3 and 4, such that participants viewed the late and early variants of lineup 4 respectively, as opposed to the early and late variants (as per the simultaneous lineup condition).

Mickes, L., Seale-Carlisle, T. M., Chen, X., & Boogert, S. (2022). Pywitness 1.0: A python eyewitness identification analysis toolkit. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/5ruks

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Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in The Open Science Framework (OSF) at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/4XR6Z.