SUMMARY—The criminal justice system relies heavily on eyewitnesses to determine the facts surrounding criminal events. Eyewitnesses may identify culprits, recall conversations, or remember other details. An eyewitness who has no motive to lie is a powerful form of evidence for jurors, especially if the eyewitness appears to be highly confident about his or her recollection. In the absence of definitive proof to the contrary, the eyewitness’s account is generally accepted by police, prosecutors, judges, and juries. However, the faith the legal system places in eyewitnesses has been shaken recently by the advent of forensic DNA testing. Given the right set of circumstances, forensic DNA testing can prove that a person who was convicted of a crime is, in fact, innocent. Analyses of DNA exoneration cases since 1992 reveal that mistaken eyewitness identification

Computer technology has become an increasingly important tool for conducting eyewitness identifications. In the area of lineup identifications, computerized administration offers several advantages for researchers and law enforcement. PC Eyewitness is designed specifically to administer lineups. To assess this new lineup technology, two studies were conducted in order to replicate the results of previous studies comparing simultaneous and sequential lineups. One hundred twenty university students participated in each experiment. Experiment 1 used traditional paper-and-pencil lineup administration methods to compare simultaneous to sequential lineups. Experiment 2usedPCEyewitness to administer simultaneous and sequential lineups. The results of these studies were compared to the meta-analytic results reported by N. Steblay, J. Dysart, S. Fulero, and R. C. L. Lindsay (2001). No differences were found between paper-and-pencil and PC Eyewitness lineup administration methods. The core findings of the N. Steblay et al. (2001) meta-analysis were replicated by both administration procedures. These results show that computerized lineup administration using PC Eyewitness is an effective means for gathering eyewitness identification data. KEY WORDS: memory; witnesses; computer; methodology.

The secretary problem is a recreational mathematics problem, suited to laboratory experimentation, that nevertheless is representative of a class of real world sequential decision-making tasks. In the ‘full information’ version, an observer is presented with a sequence of values from a known distribution, and is required to choose the maximum value. The difficulties are that a value can only be chosen at the time it is presented, that the last value in the sequence is a forced choice if none is chosen earlier, and that any value that is not the maximum is scored as completely wrong. We report a study of human performance on full information secretary problems with 10, 20 and 50 values in the sequence, and considers three different heuristics as models of human decision-making. It is found that some people achieve near-optimal levels of accuracy, but that there are individual differences in human performance. A quantitative evaluation of the three heuristics, using the Minimum Description Length criterion, shows inter-individual differences, but intra-individual consistency, in the use of the heuristics. In particular, people seem to use the heuristics that involve choosing a value when it exceeds an internal threshold, but differ in how they set thresholds. On the basis of these findings, a more general threshold-based family of heuristic models is developed.

Principal Component Analyses (PCA) of four face-recognition studies uncovered two independent components. The first component was strongly related to false-alarm errors with new faces as well as facial “conjunctions ” that recombine features of previously studied faces. The second component was strongly related to hits as well as to the conjunction/new difference in false-alarm errors. The pattern of loadings on both components was impressively invariant across the experiments which differed in age range of participants, stimulus set, list length, facial orientation, and the presence versus absence of familiarized lures along with conjunction and entirely new lures in the recognition test. Taken together, the findings show that neither component was exclusively related to discrimination, criterion, configural processing, featural processing, context recollection, or familiarity. Rather, the data are consistent with a neuropsychological model that distinguishes frontal and occipito-temporal contributions to face recognition memory. Within the framework of the model, our PCA findings showed that frontal and occipito-temporal contributions are discernable from the pattern

Principal-component analyses of 4 face-recognition studies uncovered 2 independent components. The first component was strongly related to false-alarm errors with new faces as well as to facial “conjunctions” that recombine features of previously studied faces. The second component was strongly related to hits as well as to the conjunction/new difference in false-alarm errors. The pattern of loadings on both components was impressively invariant across the experiments, which differed in age range of participants, stimulus set, list length, facial orientation, and the presence versus absence of familiarized lures along with conjunction and entirely new lures in the recognition test. Taken together, the findings show that neither component was exclusively related to discrimination, criterion, configural processing, featural processing, context recollection, or familiarity. Rather, the data are consistent with a neuropsychological model that distinguishes frontal and occipitotemporal contributions to face recognition memory. Within the framework of the model, findings showed that frontal and occipitotemporal contributions are discernible from the pattern of individual differences in behavioral performance among healthy young adults.

Many states and communities are rewriting their eyewitness identification policies. Some of these jurisdictions are excluding simultaneous lineups altogether, and others are allowing them if double-blind administration of sequential lineups is not possible. The Innocence Project advocates the latter and puts forward blind sequential-lineup administration as the best form of lineup identification. Although sequential lineups are claimed to be superior, no explicit policy analysis has been done. In the present study, the author uses a policy-analysis model based on decision theory to examine the utility of simultaneous and sequential lineups, as well as to examine a range of values placed on identification outcomes and their probabilities. Simultaneous lineups are shown to be superior to sequential lineups under most conditions examined in this analysis.

Abstract A Freedom of Information Act lawsuit secured 100 eyewitness identification reports from Evanston, Illinois, one of three cities of the Illinois Pilot Program. The files provide empirical evidence regarding three methodological aspects of the Program’s comparison of nonblind simultaneous to double-blind sequential lineups. (1) A-priori differences existed between lineup conditions. For example, the simultaneous non-blind lineup condition was more likely to involve witnesses who had already identified the suspect in a previous lineup or who knew the offender (non-stranger identifications), and this condition also entailed shorter delays between event and lineup. (2) Verbatim eyewitness comments were recorded more often in double-blind sequential than in non-blind simultaneous lineup reports (83 % vs. 39%). (3) Effective lineup structure was used equally in the two lineup conditions.

A considerable amount of empirical research has been conducted on ways to improve the eyewitness identification process, with emphasis on the use of lineups. Public policy changes are currently underway with respect to lineup procedures: Sequential lineups are being recommended to police as the best practice. This may be premature because the conditions under which sequential lineups are superior to simultaneous lineups are not well understood given the current literature: Many studies are reported with insufficient detail needed to judge the adequacy of the research design, new data show that the sequential superiority effect may vary as a function of study methodology, theoretical assumptions have not been adequately tested, and important comparisons that may rule out the ostensible superiority of the sequential lineup have not been studied. This review summarizes the literature, presents new data, and identifies the need for further empirical work before appropriately grounded recommendations as to the superiority of sequential lineups can be made. The construction and administration of eyewitness lineups and photospreads 1 has received substantial attention in the empirical literature over the past 30 years

received a life sentence for the rape of a Georgia woman after four different women identified him. Exonerated in 1999, he walked out of prison a 41-year old man.

Research-based reforms for collecting eyewitness identification evidence (e.g., unbiased prelineup instructions, double-blind administration) have been proposed by psychologists and adopted in increasing numbers of jurisdictions across the United States. It is well known that reducing rates of mistaken identifications can also reduce accurate identification rates (hits). But the reforms are largely designed to reduce the suggestiveness of the procedures they are meant to replace. Accordingly, we argue that it is misleading to call any “hits ” obtained because of suggestive procedures “hits ” and then saddle reforms with the charge that they reduce the rate of these illegitimate “hits. ” Eyewitness identification evidence should be based solely on the independent memory of the witness, not aided by biased instructions, cues from lineup administrators, or the use of lineup fillers who make the suspect stand out. Failure to call out these “hits ” as being illegitimate can give solace to those who are motivated to preserve the status quo. Running head: EYEWITNESS IDENTIFICATION REFORMS 3