Searching for the sequential line-up advantage: A distinctiveness explanation

Abstract

Gronlund (2005) proposed that one factor leading to a sequential line-up advantage could be the greater likelihood of recollecting distinctive information about a perpetrator when using a sequential line-up. Since then questions have been raised about the robustness of the sequential advantage and the possible moderating role of line-up fairness and suspect position. We manipulated these factors as well as suspect/target distinctiveness in two experiments. A sequential advantage occurred only after encoding a distinctive target, both for biased line-ups (Experiment 1) and fair line-ups (Experiment 2). Remember-Know results were consistent with the greater use of a recall-to-reject strategy in target-absent sequential line-ups. This provided support for the first process-based explanation of the sequential line-up advantage. No consistent position effects were found, but this might be due to the line-up recognition paradigm used, in which each participant viewed a line-up for each of several targets. Theory-based explorations of eyewitness identification are necessary to continue to delineate the underpinnings of the sequential line-up advantage.

Keywords:

• Eyewitness
• Line-up
• Distinctiveness
• Recollection

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation grant SES-0719997. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of the NSF. The authors would like to thank three students of Texas A&M University – Commerce, Dawn Weatherford, Jason Lloyd, and Vanessa Martinez, for their extensive work in collection of stimuli and data. In addition we thank the reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this manuscript.