Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2005. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed March 1, 2006). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references ( p. 113-116).

In a large body of research, Elizabeth Loftus (1975) first illuminated major concerns about the inaccuracy of eyewitness accounts. The primary goal of the present research was to test whether training regarding common eyewitness mistakes and witness suggestibility could improve eyewitness accuracy. The experimental group watched a presentation on research conducted by Elizabeth Loftus (1975) on eyewitness testimony and suggestibility during a Psychology course. Afterwards, an actor interrupted the classroom and had a discussion with the teacher. Students were asked a series of questions about the disruption. Some of the questions were leading and suggested certain things about the disruption that were inaccurate. After the misleading questions were asked, students were instructed to write a brief summary of what they saw. One week later, the students were asked direct questions about the disruption. A control group did not receive the presentation on eyewitness testimony, but witnessed the exact same event as the experimental group and followed the same procedure. The results suggest that participants who were trained were not as influenced as participants in the control group. Additionally, students in the control group reported the actor's behavior as more threatening than did the experimental group. This research not only adds to the existing literature, but has the potential to improve current eyewitness identification procedures in order to strengthen our justice system.

The present thesis examined the effects of anger on the completeness and accuracy of eyewitness free and cued recall and recognition performance. Anger was revealed by a recent survey as the emotion experienced by the majority of eyewitnesses to crime, so is particularly important in this context. Previous literature has tended to use generic concepts such as ‘emotion’ or ‘stress’ to investigate emotion effects, but this thesis sought to examine the effect of the specific emotion of anger on memory. Experiment 1 tested theoretical predictions regarding the effects of anger on encoding and retrieval processes. In line with these predictions, angry participants provide more complete descriptions of a perpetrator compared to neutral participants. However, angry participants provide less complete descriptions of the perpetrator’s actions than their neutral counterparts. This pattern of results was replicated throughout all experiments in this thesis. Experiment 2 revealed that anger has no effect on the completeness and accuracy of victim descriptions. Experiment 3 found that the pattern of anger effects observed for a younger adult sample were also found when older adults were tested. This prompted a statistical comparison of younger and older adults which found very few age effects and no interactions between age of the participant, experience of anger and the category of detail recalled. The final experiment thoroughly investigated the effects of anger on participants’ ability to recognise the perpetrator from a photographic lineup. The main findings of this thesis suggest that while angry eyewitnesses may be able to provide a more complete description of the perpetrator, they may be less able to describe what he did, and less able to accurately recognise him from a lineup than neutral eyewitnesses. These findings are discussed in terms of cognitive and meta-cognitive models of encoding and retrieval.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Drexel University, 2004. / Includes abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 170-176).

This program of research examined whether mock-jurors could more accurately discriminate between correct and false eyewitness identifications after exposure to the identification procedure instead of—or in addition to—the witness’s testimony. In Experiment 1, 332 eyewitnesses exposed to staged crime videos attempted to identify the “criminal” from lineups. Lineups contained either the “criminal” or a replacement foil, were presented simultaneously or sequentially, and were conducted under double-blind, single-blind, or post-identification feedback conditions. In Experiment 2, 432 mock-jurors viewed a subset of the eyewitnesses from Experiment 1 (n = 48). Each mock-juror viewed a single eyewitness making their identification decision and/or testifying about the crime, their identification, and the officer. More mock-jurors believed that the eyewitnesses had made correct identifications if they viewed the testimony—with or without the identification procedure—compared to exposure to the identification procedure alone. Furthermore, more mock-jurors believed eyewitnesses who received post-identification feedback or had made their identifications from sequential lineups. These differences in belief, however, did not translate into a difference in accuracy; overall, mock-jurors believed 62.96% of correct identifications and 56.48% of false identifications. Exposure to the identification procedure did not improve mock-jurors ability to determine the accuracy of an identification; however, these mock-jurors were more aware of the post-identification feedback. Videotaping identification procedures may make triers of fact more aware of biased lineup procedures; nonetheless, exposure to these videotapes will not improve the accuracy of mock-jurors’ decisions. / Thesis (Ph.D, Psychology) -- Queen's University, 2008-07-24 15:00:30.512

Six separate experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of specific retrieval procedures on recall, recognition, confidence and the confidence / accuracy relationship for these retrieval domains. In experiment I the effects of retrieval procedures were considered as part of a recognised police interview technique, the Cognitive Interview (CI), while in experiments 11,111, and IV the retrieval procedures involved discrete context manipulations. Experiments V and VI focused exclusively on the confidence / accuracy relationship for recall as a function of specific retrieval procedures and question type. Results indicated that although frequently improving the quality and quantity of recall, the Cl and other types of context reinstatement manipulation did not reliably improve recognition accuracy from lineup presentations, nor did they have a significant moderating effect upon the confidence / accuracy relationship. However in experiment TV in which a long (three month) delay was utilised significant effects of context manipulation on recognition performance were found. With regard to confidence, experiment I indicated that the Cl was responsible for a significant increase in confidence of recall but not recognition. Results from experiments II, III, and iv indicated non consistent effects of context manipulation on confidence, rating-q for either recall and recognition. With regard to the confidence / accuracy relationship, results from the initial five experiments indicated that in very few instances was confidence and accuracy significantly related. However, in experiment VI confidence and accuracy was found to be reliably and consistently related The most important finding to emerge from this research suggests the retrieval procedure undergone by a witness (interactive interview / passive questionnaire), to be an important moderator of the confidence / accuracy relationship. As such the results are supportive of Leippe's (1980) two premises in which it is suggested that as reconstructional and social influences increase, the confidence / accuracy relationship will correspondingly decrease

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Tufts University, 2004. / Adviser: Lisa M. Shin. Submitted to the Dept. of Psychology. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 128-135). Access restricted to members of the Tufts University community. Also available via the World Wide Web;

Thesis (M.A.)--Rowan University, 2009. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references.

This study investigated the influence of an authority figure on an eyewitness identification task. Subjects watched a staged crime and then were administered a photo lineup by either an authority or non-authority figure. Subjects who were administered a lineup by an authority figure were significantly more likely to choose someone from the lineup than subjects who were shown a lineup by a non-authority figure. Similarly, subjects who were given biased instructions were significantly more likely to choose someone from the lineup than subjects who were given unbiased instructions. These effect obtained whether the target was present or absent from the lineup. These data suggest that one way to minimize suggestibility of eyewitnesses is to replace the uniformed officer with a neutral individual. Alternatively, the effect of a police officer on a witness' choosing behavior may be eliminated by providing the witness with unbiased instructions.

Metamemory is a person’s knowledge about their own memory. Metamemory judgments are sometimes accurate and sometimes not. Eakin (2005) found a dissociation between metamemory predictions and memory performance under conditions of retroactive interference and attributed this dissociation to the accessibility heuristic. This study investigated whether the accessibility heuristic would be used to make metamemory predictions in the more complex context of the eyewitness memory paradigm. The results indicate that the accessibility heuristic was used to make metamamory predictions. Memory performance was better for control than misled critical items, but people predicted they would perform equally well in both conditions. It appears that in the less austere context of the eyewitness memory paradigm, the amount of information accessible for control and misled items was equal, and therefore, metamemory judgments were equal for control and misled items.