Eyewitness identification in simultaneous and sequential lineups: an investigation of position effects using receiver operating characteristics

ABSTRACT

For decades, sequential lineups have been considered superior to simultaneous lineups in the context of eyewitness identification. However, most of the research leading to this conclusion was based on the analysis of diagnosticity ratios that do not control for the respondent’s response criterion. Recent research based on the analysis of ROC curves has found either equal discriminability for sequential and simultaneous lineups, or higher discriminability for simultaneous lineups. Some evidence for potential position effects and for criterion shifts in sequential lineups has also been reported. Using ROC curve analysis, we investigated the effects of the suspect’s position on discriminability and response criteria in both simultaneous and sequential lineups. We found that sequential lineups suffered from an unwanted position effect. Respondents employed a strict criterion for the earliest lineup positions, and shifted to a more liberal criterion for later positions. No position effects and no criterion shifts were observed in simultaneous lineups. This result suggests that sequential lineups are not superior to simultaneous lineups, and may give rise to unwanted position effects that have to be considered when conducting police lineups.

KEYWORDS:

• Eyewitness identification
• police lineup
• simultaneous vs sequential
• position effect
• receiver operating characteristic

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Julia Meisters http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0784-1385

Birk Diedenhofen http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1495-4257

Jochen Musch http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2118-2790