The thesis focused on three areas in the child eyewitness literature that have received limited research attention: (1) the use of props to facilitate children's recall; (2) the effect of individual differences (in particular ethnicity) on children's recall; and (3) the preparation of children for court. Three recently developed prop-based techniques designed to facilitate children's recall were evaluated. The felt board technique did not significantly increase children correct (and erroneous) free recall, thus supporting the previous limited research (Poole, 1992). The auditory feedback technique also did not significantly increase children's correct (and erroneous) additional recall, though descriptive analyses suggested this technique to be most beneficial for older children. The pictorial cue cards technique did not significantly increase children's correct (and erroneous) free recall. Descriptive analyses revealed that children who were instructed in how to use the cue cards provided more correct free recall and less erroneous free recall than children who practised using the cue cards before the interview. Children'S ethnicity and interviewer's ethnicity were not found to significantly effect children's recall but did have some effect on children's response to questioning. The findings of the interview studies suggested that greater attention needs to be given to the examination of how individual differences affect children's recall. Professionals who were surveyed about their views and experience of preparation of child witnesses for court were found to be aware of the systeminduced trauma suffered by child witnesses and thus the need to support them with preparation. Overall, professionals' experience suggested that child witnesses received preparation that was often insufficient and variable in quality. The survey findings highlighted the need for further research in this neglected area and for better training and greater resources for professionals tasked with supporting child witnesses.

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Access to abstract restricted until 05/2016. / Access to thesis restricted until 05/2016. / Department of Psychological Science

This research examined the influence of eyewitness identification decisions on participants in the role of police investigators. Undergraduate "investigators" interviewed confederate "witnesses" and then searched a computer database of potential suspects. The database included information on each suspect's physical description, prior criminal record, alibi, and fingerprints. Participants selected a suspect and estimated the probability that the suspect was guilty. Investigators subsequently administered a photo lineup to the witness and re-estimated the suspect's guilt. Investigators were greatly swayed by eyewitness decisions. If the witness identified the suspect probability estimates increased dramatically. If the witness identified an innocent lineup member or rejected the lineup,+ investigators' probability estimates dropped significantly, even when pre-lineup objective evidence (e.g., fingerprints) was strong. Eyewitness decisions similarly influenced investigators' confidence in the witness and willingness to arrest the suspect. Participant-investigators greatly overestimated the amount of information gain provided by eyewitness identifications.

Witnesses sometimes mistakenly identify innocent suspects in lineups from which the real culprit is absent, and those errors can have tragic consequences. Can we estimate in advance a witness’s susceptibility to making false identifications in culprit-absent lineups? Kantner and Lindsay (2012) found that response criterion on a standard test of old/new recognition (of faces or words) correlated with the likelihood of making lineup identifications. Four experiments tested the predictive utility of a two-alternative forced choice facial recognition test that included trials in which neither face had been studied. Through Experiment 3 we observed several weak predictive relationships, including confidence on the facial recognition test with confidence on the lineup test, but not the hypothesized relationship: that the rate of false alarms on the TA face recognition trials would predict false alarm rates on the target-absent lineup trials. Experiment 4 implemented a substantial increase in the number of face recognition trials displaying two non-studied faces (from 4 trials to 30) and the originally hypothesized relationship was found (r=.45). Implications for future research aimed at developing measures with real-world utility are discussed. / Graduate / 0633 / 0623 / 0384 / mjbldssr@uvic.ca

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2005. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vi, 72 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 58-63).

The present study examined the effect of introspection and verbalization on the confidence-accuracy correlation. Recent research has likened the process of eyewitness confidence assessment to a process of attitude formation. Following this analogy, it was hypothesized that introspection would strengthen, while verbalization would weaken, the confidence-accuracy correlation. Participants viewed a mock crime, made a lineup identification and either introspected or verbalized reasons for their identification (or did neither) before assessing their confidence. Results revealed that while introspection failed to significantly improve the confidence-accuracy correlation, verbalization decreased the correlation. These findings provide further theoretical support for the conceptualization of eyewitness confidence formation as analogous to attitude formation. In addition, these findings suggest that there are other mechanisms that can have a detrimental influence on the confidence-accuracy correlation. On the basis of these findings it is recommended that eyewitnesses refrain from verbalizing information about their lineup identification prior to providing their confidence.

Psychologists, legal practitioners and scholars share the knowledge that honest eyewitnesses can err in their attempts to identify the perpetrator of a crime. This thesis reports an experimental investigation of the extent to which expert evidence and judicial instruction can improve juror ability to discriminate between accurate and inaccurate identifications. Special attention is also paid to the logic of inferences which have been made by psychologists regarding the efficacy of expert evidence, and compares methodologies adopting direct measures of participant Sensitivity to Eyewitness Accuracy (SEA) with those that can only indirectly assess this construct. Study 1 surveys the knowledge and opinions of legal professionals regarding eyewitness identification issues (n = 35), showing that respondents expressed doubts that judicial instructions would exert an effect equivalent to that of eyewitness expert evidence. Accordingly, Experiments 1 to 4 (Experiment 1, n = 104; Experiment 2, n = 238; Experiment 3, n = 228; Experiment 4, n = 297) were conducted to directly assess the relative impacts of judicial instruction and expert evidence on participant juror SEA. The methodology utilised in these investigations incorporated the testimony of real eyewitnesses to a staged crime scenario in order to assess the impact of instruction on juror ability to discriminate between known accurate and known inaccurate eyewitnesses. Overall, little evidence was found to support the notion that expert evidence is more effective than judicial instruction, as no significant association was identified between instruction type and SEA. This result was found to hold irrespective of the objective quality of the expert?s testimony (accurate or erroneous). In light of the results from Experiments 1 to 4, Experiment 5 was designed to investigate why the experts were not able to improve the discrimination accuracy of the jurors. This study focused on the extent to which participants of varying levels of expertise could correctly classify eyewitness accuracy. The results of Experiment 5 (n = 145) suggest that experts were no better able to discriminate between accurate and inaccurate eyewitnesses than novice laypeople. Overall, the evidence reported in this thesis raises serious questions regarding the utility of eyewitness expertise in the completion of eyewitness discrimination tasks.

A wealth of research has highlighted the susceptibility of eyewitnesses to verbal influence. However, considerably less attention has been paid to the role of nonverbal influence in police questioning. The purpose of this thesis was to evaluate the extent to which gestures can exert an influence on witnesses and skew their responses when questioned. Study 1 initially investigated this by presenting participants with an on-screen 'police' interviewer who accompanied his questions with gestures conveying either accurate or misleading information about a piece of video footage they had witnessed. Results showed that, for one question in particular, participants' responses concurred with the information conveyed to them in gesture; accurate gestures led more participants to giving correct responses and misleading gestures led more participants to giving fabricated responses. Study 2 built on this by examining whether gestures could also affect the confidence attributed to their responses in order to give insight into whether gestures were knowingly processed for information. It was found that, in some cases, gestures were able to increase confidence in both accurate and misled responses. Study 3 examined participants' awareness of gesture further by studying their attention to gesture during its performance and ability to identify it retrospectively on a recognition task. A new set of questions confirmed that gestures could influence the responses of participants (including those working in the legal profession) and revealed that the influence of gesture appears to be at its strongest when unnoticed by participants. Finally, study 4 considered whether the results of the previous studies could be replicated in a more ecologically valid interview scenario and confirmed that gestures continued to be influential when performed face-to-face. Overall, it was concluded that gestures can impact accurate eyewitness testimony and can be a powerful influential tool in police interviews.

Psychologists, legal practitioners and scholars share the knowledge that honest eyewitnesses can err in their attempts to identify the perpetrator of a crime. This thesis reports an experimental investigation of the extent to which expert evidence and judicial instruction can improve juror ability to discriminate between accurate and inaccurate identifications. Special attention is also paid to the logic of inferences which have been made by psychologists regarding the efficacy of expert evidence, and compares methodologies adopting direct measures of participant Sensitivity to Eyewitness Accuracy (SEA) with those that can only indirectly assess this construct. Study 1 surveys the knowledge and opinions of legal professionals regarding eyewitness identification issues (n = 35), showing that respondents expressed doubts that judicial instructions would exert an effect equivalent to that of eyewitness expert evidence. Accordingly, Experiments 1 to 4 (Experiment 1, n = 104; Experiment 2, n = 238; Experiment 3, n = 228; Experiment 4, n = 297) were conducted to directly assess the relative impacts of judicial instruction and expert evidence on participant juror SEA. The methodology utilised in these investigations incorporated the testimony of real eyewitnesses to a staged crime scenario in order to assess the impact of instruction on juror ability to discriminate between known accurate and known inaccurate eyewitnesses. Overall, little evidence was found to support the notion that expert evidence is more effective than judicial instruction, as no significant association was identified between instruction type and SEA. This result was found to hold irrespective of the objective quality of the expert?s testimony (accurate or erroneous). In light of the results from Experiments 1 to 4, Experiment 5 was designed to investigate why the experts were not able to improve the discrimination accuracy of the jurors. This study focused on the extent to which participants of varying levels of expertise could correctly classify eyewitness accuracy. The results of Experiment 5 (n = 145) suggest that experts were no better able to discriminate between accurate and inaccurate eyewitnesses than novice laypeople. Overall, the evidence reported in this thesis raises serious questions regarding the utility of eyewitness expertise in the completion of eyewitness discrimination tasks.