Can it be affected? | The Witness' Trial

CAN THE EYEWITNESS ACCURACY BE AFFECTED?

One might think that a confident eyewitness would also be accurate when it comes to the identification of offenders, but as seen in ‘Is Eyewitness testimony accurate?' the confidence-accuracy relationship is not that simple. There are some really important factors that often end up affecting the confidence-accuracy relationship. Let’s go through them.

TARGET LINEUP

We all have seen in legal shows how an identification takes place and it usually includes a lineup of possible offenders. But what exactly is a lineup? Does it have some specific features? How do police carry that out?

In a police lineup, several individuals (who may or may not have committed the crime) are presented in a row to be identified by the witness (can also be the victim). The lineup can be done with the help of photographs as well.

The eyewitness may be presented with one of the two possible lineups:

TARGET PRESENT

This type of lineup will include the actual perpetrator or the photograph of the actual perpetrator. Here, the eyewitness is given three choices:

A Correct Identification: A correct identification involves the eyewitness correctly choosing the perpetrator from the lineup.

B Foil Identification: In this situation, the eyewitness will incorrectly identify a known innocent person (i.e., foil). However, the innocent person is out of harm since it is known to authorities that they are innocent. Here, the eyewitness loses their validity.

C False rejection: Here the eyewitness fails to recognize the perpetrator from the lineup and incorrectly rejects the lineup stating that the perpetrator is not present.

TARGET ABSENT

This type of lineup will include a known innocent suspect rather than the perpetrator. Here also the above-stated choices are present.

A. Correct Identification: A correct rejection occurs when the eyewitness correctly states that the perpetrator (or photograph) is not present in the lineup.

B. Foil Identification: A foil identification occurs when the eyewitness incorrectly identifies a known innocent person as the perpetrator.

C. False Identification: A false identification indicates a selection of the innocent suspect by the eyewitness. The consequences of false identification are severe because the actual perpetrator might never be caught.

There is a slightly bigger relationship between confidence and accuracy in the target-present line-up than for the situation where the target is absent from the line-up. In other words, identification is better if the target is present. However, it is important to note that this is an area that requires much research.

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MEMORY TASK

As is known, identifying a perpetrator is a huge memory task that involves searching the memory for the descriptors that match the offender. Memory tasks involve recognition and recall.

Recognition in a police lineup involves looking at different individuals and then comparing them to the person the eyewitness saw committing the crime. When the eyewitness recognizes the offender, it means they are recognizing someone familiar because the information is already stored. Recognition can be done by looking at photographs and comparing them to the offender the eyewitness saw.

Whereas The recall involves retrieving the information without any cues or descriptors. The eyewitness is asked to describe the perpetrator instead of looking at a lineup. Usually, the eyewitnesses are expected to recall and then presented with a lineup to recognize.

Because of the presentation of cues, recognition becomes easier, however, the relationship between accuracy and confidence is higher for recall tasks. Surprising!

OPTIMALITY ENCODING HYPOTHESIS

The Optimality Encoding Hypothesis in eyewitness testimony was first introduced by Kenneth Deffenbacher. To put it simply, the hypothesis states that the likelihood of obtaining reliable positive correlations between witness confidence and accuracy varies directly with the degree of optimal information-processing conditions. These optimal conditions need to be present at the time of stimulus encoding (witnessing the crime), the storage of memory (retention of the stimulus), and the memory test (recognition or recall).

Example: If an eyewitness is asked to identify the perpetrator for a crime for which they didn’t pay much attention but simply happen to be on the spot, chances are that their confidence is highly compromised and so is the accuracy. Or a witness might be much more confident about a crime that happened in broad daylight than in the dark.

Want to read about foils and police line-ups?

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Thank you for reading.

Sources:

Pratt, K. J. (2017). Examining Lineup Identification as a Function of Foil Similarity and Lineup Procedure.
Howitt, D. (2018). Introduction to Forensic and Criminal Psychology Sixth edition.