262
Views
0
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
New Ideas in Psychology Crime and Law

The untapped potential of lineups: using eyewitness memory to rule out innocent suspects

ORCID Icon, ORCID Icon, ORCID Icon & ORCID Icon
Received 03 Jan 2023, Accepted 21 Jul 2023, Published online: 13 Aug 2023

References

  • Ayala, N. T., Smith, A. M., & Ying, R. C. (2022). The rule-out procedure: Increasing the potential for police investigators to detect suspect innocence from eyewitness lineup procedures. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 11(4), 489–499. https://doi.org/10.1037/mac0000018
  • Brewer, N., & Wells, G. L. (2006). The confidence-accuracy relationship in eyewitness identification: Effects of lineup instructions, foil similarity, and target-absent base rates. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 12(1), 11–30. https://doi.org/10.1037/1076-898X.12.1.11
  • Brooks, S. K., & Greenberg, N. (2021). Psychological impact of being wrongfully accused of criminal offences: A systematic literature review. Medicine, Science and the Law, 61(1), 44–54. https://doi.org/10.1177/0025802420949069
  • Burnett, R., Hoyle, C., & Speechlet, N.-E. (2017). The context and impact of being wrongly accused of abuse in occupations of trust. The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice, 56(2), 176–197. https://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12199
  • Clark, S. E. (2012). Costs and benefits of eyewitness identification reform: Psychological science and public policy. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7(3), 238–259. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691612439584
  • Clark, S. E., Erickson, M. A., & Breneman, J. (2011). Probative value of absolute and relative judgments in eyewitness identification. Law and Human Behavior, 35(5), 364–380. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10979-010-9245-1
  • Clark, S. E., Howell, R. T., & Davey, S. L. (2008). Regularities in eyewitness identification. Law and Human Behavior, 32(3), 187–218. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10979-006-9082-4
  • Clark, S. E., & Wells, G. L. (2008). On the diagnosticity of multiple-witness identifications. Law and Human Behavior, 32(5), 406–422. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10979-007-9115-7
  • Dobbins, I. G. (2022). Recognition language classifiers demonstrate far transfer of learning. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 29(4), 1414–1425. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-022-02085-1
  • Dobbins, I. G., & Kantner, J. (2019). The language of accurate recognition memory. Cognition, 192, 103988. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2019.05.025
  • Giacona, A., Lampinen, J. M., & Anastasi, J. S. (2021). Estimator variables can matter even for high-confidence lineup identifications made under pristine conditions. Law and Human Behavior, 45(3), 256–270. https://doi.org/10.1037/lhb0000381
  • Greathouse, S. M., & Kovera, M. B. (2009). Instruction bias and lineup presentation moderate the effects of administrator knowledge on eyewitness identification. Law and Human Behavior, 33(1), 70–82. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10979-008-9136-x
  • Horry, R., & Brewer, N. (2016). How target–lure similarity shapes confidence judgments in multiple-alternative decision tasks. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 145(12), 1615–1634. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000227
  • Innocence Project. (n. d.). Cases: Larry Mayes. Innocence Project. Retrieved June 23, 2023, from https://innocenceproject.org/cases/larry-mayes/
  • Lindsay, R. C. L., Kalmet, N., Leung, J., Bertrand, M. I., Sauer, J. D., & Sauerland, M. (2013). Confidence and accuracy of lineup selections and rejections: Postdicting rejection accuracy with confidence. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 2(3), 179–184. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2013.06.002
  • Lindsay, R. C. L., & Wells, G. L. (1980). What price justice? Exploring the relationship of lineup fairness to identification accuracy. Law and Human Behavior, 4(4), 303–313. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01040622
  • Macmillan, N. A., & Creelman, C. D. (2005). Detection theory: A user’s guide (2nd ed.). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
  • Mickes, L., Flowe, H. D., & Wixted, J. T. (2012). Receiver operating characteristic analysis of eyewitness memory: Comparing the diagnostic accuracy of simultaneous versus sequential lineups. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 18(4), 361–376. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0030609
  • National Registry of Exonerations. (n. d.). Larry Mayes. National Registry of Exonerations. Retrieved June 23, 2023, from law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/caedetail.aspx?caseid=3415
  • Sauer, J., Brewer, N., Zweck, T., & Weber, N. (2010). The effect of retention interval on the confidence–accuracy relationship for eyewitness identification. Law and Human Behavior, 34(4), 337–347. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10979-009-9192-x
  • Sauer, J. D., Brewer, N., & Weber, N. (2008). Multiple confidence estimates as indices of eyewitness memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 137(3), 528–547. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0012712
  • Sauerland, M., Sagana, A., & Sporer, S. L. (2012). Assessing nonchoosers’ eyewitness identification accuracy from photographic showups by using confidence and response times. Law and Human Behavior, 36(5), 394–403. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0093926
  • Seale-Carlisle, T. M., Grabman, J. H., & Dodson, C. S. (2022). The language of accurate and inaccurate eyewitnesses. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 151(6), 1283–1305. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001152
  • Smith, A. M., & Ayala, N. T. (2021). Do traditional lineups undermine the capacity for eyewitness memory to rule out innocent suspects? Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 10(2), 215–220. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2021.03.003
  • Smith, A. M., Ayala, N. T., & Ying, R. C. (2023). The rule out procedure: A signal-detection-informed approach to the collection of eyewitness identification evidence. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 29(1), 19–31. https://doi.org/10.1037/law0000373
  • Smith, A. M., Mackovichova, S., Jalava, S. T., & Pozzulo, J. (2020b). Fair forensic-object lineups are superior to forensic-object showups. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 9(1), 68–82. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0101843
  • Smith, A. M., Wells, G. L., Lindsay, R. C. L., & Myerson, T. (2018). Eyewitness identification performance on showups improves with an additional-opportunities instruction: Evidence for present-absent criteria discrepancy. Law and Human Behavior, 42(3), 215–226. https://doi.org/10.1037/lhb0000284
  • Smith, A. M., Yang, Y., & Wells, G. L. (2020a). Distinguishing between investigator discriminability and eyewitness discriminability: A method for creating full receiver operating characteristic curves of lineup identification performance. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 15(3), 589–607. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691620902426
  • Sporer, S. L., Penrod, S., Read, D., & Cutler, B. (1995). Choosing, confidence, and accuracy: A meta-analysis of the confidence-accuracy relation in eyewitness identification studies. Psychological Bulletin, 118(3), 315–327. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.118.3.315
  • Starns, J. J., Cohen, A. L., & Rotello, C. M. (2021). A complete method for assessing the effectiveness of eyewitness identification procedures: Expected information gain. Psychological Review, 130(3), 677–719. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000332
  • Steblay, N., & Dysart, J. (2016). Repeated eyewitness identification procedures with the same suspect. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 5(3), 284–289. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2016.06.010
  • Steblay, N., Dysart, J., Fulero, S., & Lindsay, R. C. L. (2003). Eyewitness accuracy rates in police showup and lineup presentations: A meta-analytic comparison. Law and Human Behavior, 27(5), 523–540. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025438223608
  • Swets, J. A. (1973). The relative operating characteristic in psychology: A technique for isolating effects of response bias finds wide use in the study of perception and cognition. Science, 182(4116), 990–1000. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.182.4116.990
  • Weber, N., & Brewer, N. (2004). Confidence-accuracy calibration in absolute and relative face recognition judgments. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 10(3), 156–172. https://doi.org/10.1037/1076-898X.10.3.156
  • Wells, G. L., Kovera, M. B., Douglass, A. B., Brewer, N., Meissner, C. A., & Wixted, J. T. (2020). Policy and procedure recommendations for the collection and preservation of eyewitness identification evidence. Law and Human Behavior, 44(1), 3–36. https://doi.org/10.1037/lhb0000359
  • Wells, G. L., & Lindsay, R. C. (1980). On estimating the diagnosticity of eyewitness nonidentifications. Psychological Bulletin, 88(3), 776–784. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.88.3.776
  • Wells, G. L., Rydell, S. M., & Seelau, E. P. (1993). The selection of distractors for eyewitness lineups. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78(5), 835–844. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.78.5.835
  • Wells, G. L., Yang, Y., & Smalarz, L. (2015). Eyewitness identification: Bayesian information gain, base-rate effect equivalency curves, and reasonable suspicion. Law and Human Behavior, 39(2), 99–122. https://doi.org/10.1037/lhb0000125
  • Wixted, J. T., & Wells, G. L. (2017). The relationship between eyewitness confidence and identification accuracy: A new synthesis. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 18(1), 10–65. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100616686966
  • Wixted, J. T., Wells, G. L., Loftus, E. F., & Garrett, B. L. (2021). Test a witness’s memory of a suspect only once. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 22(Suppl 1), https://doi.org/10.1177/15291006211026259
  • Yang, Y., & Smith, A. M. (2022). fullROC: An R package for generating and analyzing eyewitness-lineup ROC curves. Behavior Research Methods, 55(3), 1259–1274. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-022-01807-6

Reprints and Corporate Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

To request a reprint or corporate permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below:

Academic Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

Obtain permissions instantly via Rightslink by clicking on the button below:

If you are unable to obtain permissions via Rightslink, please complete and submit this Permissions form. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page.