Here Comes a Regular: Effects of Prior Familiarity on Eyewitness Identification

目击者身份识别在美国每年约80，000起刑事案件中起着至关重要的作用。 然而，目击者有时会出现错误，导致无辜嫌疑人的错误识别。 在许多情况下，证人不认识嫌疑犯。 在其他情况下，证人可能事先对嫌疑人有某种程度的熟悉。 人们往往认为，如果证人事先熟悉嫌疑人，那么他们的身份肯定是准确的。然而，最近的研究表明，即使证人事先熟悉嫌疑人，也可能发生错误。目前的研究试图了解目击者对熟悉嫌疑人的识别何时可能是准确的，何时可能会出错。该研究在实验室和现场环境中测试基于理论的假设，以提供可能具有高度普遍性的结果。 作为这项研究的一部分，研究生和本科生都将接受科学方法和统计方面的培训。研究的一个关键部分涉及通过多个学生多样性更大的机构从不同的参与者池收集数据。 这也将使一个多样化的学生研究助理组的培训。 通过一系列的实验室和现场实验，研究了先前熟悉度对目击者辨认的影响。该研究提供了一个理论上的动机框架，了解熟悉的面孔识别在目击者识别设置指定的因素，发生在目击事件之前，作为脸变得熟悉，在目击事件，并在识别任务，然后系统地承诺解决这些问题。该方法的一个新颖部分是使用分类/个性化模式，以证明证人与其他个人之间互动的质量方面在熟悉阶段可能至关重要。该研究还将基础研究从感知扩展到目击者识别的应用领域。在夏令营期间为新生进行的一系列创新性实地实验将为研究结果的生态有效性提供一个机会。这项研究的结果将提供一个更清晰的画面，当熟悉的面孔识别可能是可靠的，当它可能是不太可靠的，并将告知刑事司法practice.This奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

Eyewitness identification plays a crucial role in approximately 80,000 criminal cases per year in the United States. Yet, eyewitness errors sometimes occur, leading to the misidentification of innocent suspects. In many cases, the suspect is unknown to the witness. In other cases, the witness may have some level of prior familiarity with the suspect. It is often assumed that when a witness has prior familiarity with a suspect, that their identification will invariably be accurate. However, recent research has shown that errors can occur even when the witness has prior familiarity with the suspect. The current research seeks to understand when eyewitness identification of familiar suspects is likely to be accurate, and when it may be subject to error. The research tests theory-based hypotheses in both laboratory and field settings to provide results that are likely to be highly generalizable. Both graduate students and undergraduate students will receive training in scientific methodologies and statistics as part of this research. A key part of the research involves collection of data from a diverse participant pool via multiple institutions with greater student diversity. This will also allow training of a diverse group of student research assistants. A series of laboratory and field experiments are proposed to study the impact of prior familiarity on eyewitness identification. The research provides a theoretically motivated framework for understanding familiar face recognition in eyewitness identification settings by specifying factors that occur prior to the witnessed event, as the face is becoming familiar, during the witnessed event, and during the identification task and then systematically undertakes to address these issues. A novel part of the approach is to use the categorization / individuation model to make that case that qualitative aspects of the interaction between the witness and the other individual are likely to be crucial during the familiarization phase. The research also extends basic research from perception to the applied domain of eyewitness identification. An innovative series of field experiments taking place during summer camps for rising university freshmen will provide an opportunity to examine the ecological validity of the results. Findings from this research will provide a clearer picture of when familiar face identification is likely to be reliable and when it is likely to be less reliable and will inform criminal justice practice.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.