Lineups are considered a superior method of identification to showups, but why is contested. There are two main theories: diagnostic feature detection theory, which holds that surrounding the suspect with fillers causes the eyewitness to focus on the features that are most diagnostic, and differential filler siphoning theory that claims that the fillers draw incorrect choices away from the suspect. Colloff and Wixted (2020) created a novel identification task, called a simultaneous showup, designed to prevent filler siphoning, while still allowing comparison to occur between members of the array.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe examined how prior experience encountering targets affected attention allocation and event-based prospective memory. Participants performed four color match task blocks with a difficult, but specified prospective memory task (Experiment 1) or an easier, but unspecified prospective memory task (Experiment 2). Participants were instructed to search for targets on each block.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRecollection rejection (a form of memory monitoring) involves rejecting false details on the basis of remembering true details (recall to reject), thereby increasing memory accuracy. This study examined how recollection rejection instructions and feedback affect memory accuracy and false recognition in 5-year-olds, 6- and 7-year-olds, 8- and 9-year-olds, and adults. Participants (N = 336) completed three study-test phases.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: According to the pristine conditions hypothesis, high-confidence identifications will be "remarkably accurate" when identification procedures (i.e., system variables, e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn eyewitness research the frequent use of video playback presented on a computer screen (i.e., 2D videos) in laboratory-based research is problematic due to the low realism of this method when presenting, for example, threatening (and non-threatening) first-person (and third-person) scenarios.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIt is known that children and older adults produce more false alarms in target absent line-ups and that weaker facial encoding increases choosing bias. However, there has been no investigation of how age or facial encoding strength impacts line-up position selections in either sequential or simultaneous line-ups. In the present study, we presented participants with four live targets (one by one) while manipulating sequential and simultaneous line-ups between participants and target present and target absent line-ups within participants.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIncreased distance between an eyewitness and a culprit decreases the accuracy of eyewitness identifications, but the maximum distance at which reliable observations can still be made is unknown. Our aim was to identify this threshold. We hypothesized that increased distance would decrease identification, rejection accuracy, confidence and would increase response time.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe present article focuses on a utility-based understanding of criminal justice practice regarding eyewitness identifications. We argue that there are 4 distinct types of utility that should be considered when evaluating an identification procedure. These include the utility associated with all identifications, the utility associated with only the high confidence identifications, the average utility across the full range of identifications, and the maximum utility that can be attained by selecting an ideal criterion.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWhen children go missing for many years, investigators commission age-progressed images from forensic artists to depict an updated appearance. These images have anecdotal success, and systematic research has found they lead to accurate recognition rates comparable to outdated photos. The present study examines the reliability of age progressions of the same individuals created by different artists.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEyewitnesses sometimes view faces from a distance, but little research has examined the accuracy of witnesses as a function of distance. The purpose to the present project is to examine the relationship between identification accuracy and distance under carefully controlled conditions. This is one of the first studies to examine the ability to recognize faces of strangers at a distance under free-field conditions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis article examines the opinions of jury-eligible participants regarding entrapment-related issues in online sex offender sting operations. Participants provided lower guilt ratings when the undercover officer initiated the online sexual solicitation than when the defendant initiated the online sexual solicitation. This effect was mediated by the causal attributions (situational vs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe memory-strengthening manipulations of increased presentation duration and increased number of times items were presented were manipulated in the memory conjunction paradigm. Participants viewed parent words once or three times during the study portion of the experiment for 250 ms, 1000 ms, or 3000 ms. After an old/new recognition test participants were asked to give explanations for their answers from the recognition test.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRecollection rejection is a memory editing mechanism in which related lures are rejected because of the recollection of the lure's instantiating target (e.g., "I know it wasn't pretty because it was beautiful").
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Interpers Violence
March 2009
One approach used to help find missing children is to place posters of them at the exits of supermarkets. The present research addresses the question of how effective that approach is likely to be. Posters of 8 missing children were displayed on a bulletin board at a cooperating grocery store.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFalse memories are sometimes vivid and detailed. We proposed that the details that come to be associated with false memories may be produced by a process called content borrowing. In content borrowing, details from presented items are erroneously borrowed to corroborate the occurrence of the false memory item.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the typical memory conjunction experiment, participants are presented with two "parent" stimulus items (e.g., blackmail and jailbird) that are later recombined to form a "conjunction lure" (e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe DRM paradigm was used to examine the role of global gist extraction in producing false memories in children and adults. First-graders, third-graders, and adults watched a videotape of a woman reading seven DRM lists, and then took a recognition memory test. Blocked (vs random) presentation and instructions to attend to the theme of lists were manipulated to enhance gist processing.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe present experiments test predictions of dual process models with regards to recollection rejection using a model called phantom ROC. Participants studied pictures and then took a recognition test in which they were presented with targets (i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn
September 2005
False memories are sometimes accompanied by surprisingly vivid experiential detail that makes them difficult to distinguish from actual memories. Such strikingly real false memories may be produced by a process called content borrowing in which details from presented items are errantly borrowed to corroborate the occurrence of the false memory item. In 2 experiments using think-out-loud protocols at both study and test, evidence for content borrowing occurred for more than half of the false remember judgments participants reported.
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