Sequential Lineups: Contributions of Distinctiveness and Recollection

DNA检测的出现表明，无辜的人被关在监狱里，而错误的目击证人指认被证明是无辜者被定罪的主要原因。然而，现在有一套程序性保障措施，可以提高目击证人指认的可靠性。其中最有前途的是使用顺序阵容。顺序排列（即，一次查看一个嫌疑犯）被认为上级同时排列（即，同时查看所有嫌疑人），因为这会导致证人将队列中的每个连续的人与证人对犯罪者的记忆进行比较。相比之下，同时指认会导致证人选择指认中最像犯罪者的人，如果警察抓错了人，而真正的犯罪者仍然逍遥法外，这就有问题了。然而，如果没有对顺序排队优势背后的机制的理论理解，全国范围内采用顺序排队作为程序保障将受到阻碍。 本研究的目标是建立一个定量的机制，顺序阵容优势的具体模型。主要研究者假设顺序排列优势是由于：1）增强了对独特信息的编码，2）使用回忆过程来访问这些信息。该项目包括测试这些假设的实验。 在一系列实验中，编码条件将被修改以使原始独特的刺激（即，#21453;，不再有特色。如果模型是正确的，这应该会使顺序阵容优势消失。为了评估召回的贡献，注意力在队列测试期间被划分。分散注意力会使回忆过程无效，顺序排列的优势也会消失。 程序保障措施可以提高目击证人身份的准确性，但如果不充分了解这些保障措施的作用和原因，它们的影响将是有限的。这项赠款将通过开发和测试定量的具体解释的机制，这种程序保障，顺序排队的基础，纠正这一限制。最后，对顺序列队如何保护无辜者的更好理解可能指向目击者身份识别程序的其他改进，这将进一步提高目击者身份识别的可靠性。

The advent of DNA testing has demonstrated that innocent people are in prison, and faulty eyewitness identification has been shown as the primary contributor to the conviction of the innocent. However, a set of procedural safeguards now exist that can improve the reliability of eyewitness identification. Among the most promising is the use of sequential lineups. A sequential lineup (i.e., viewing suspects one at a time) is thought to be superior to a simultaneous lineup (i.e., viewing all suspects at the same time) because it leads a witness to compare each successive person in the lineup to the witness' memory of the perpetrator. In contrast, a simultaneous lineup leads a witness to choose the person in the lineup who looks most like the perpetrator, which is problematic if the police have the wrong man and the actual perpetrator is still at-large. Without an theoretical understanding of the mechanisms underlying the sequential lineup advantage, however, the nationwide adoption of sequential lineups as a procedural safeguard will be hampered. The goal of this research is to develop a quantitatively specified model of the mechanisms underlying the sequential lineup advantage. The principal investigator hypothesizes that the sequential lineup advantage is due to: 1) enhanced encoding of distinctive information and 2) use of a recall process to access that information. This project comprises experiments that test these hypotheses. In one line of experiments, the encoding conditions will be modified to make the originally distinctive stimulus (i.e., height) no longer distinctive. If the model is right, this should make the sequential lineup advantage disappear. To evaluate the contribution of recall, attention is divided during lineup testing. Dividing attention nullifies the use of a recall process, and the sequential lineup advantage should disappear. Procedural safeguards are available that can enhance the accuracy of eyewitness identification, but without full understanding of what these safeguards do and why, their influence will be limited. This grant will redress this limitation by developing and testing quantitatively specified explanations of the mechanisms underlying one such procedural safeguard, sequential lineups. Finally, an improved understanding of how a sequential lineup protects the innocent may point to other improvements to eyewitness identification procedures that will further enhance the reliability of eyewitness identification.