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

在美国每年约8万起刑事案件中，目击者辨认起着至关重要的作用。然而，目击证人的错误有时会发生，导致无辜嫌疑人的错误识别。在许多案件中，证人不认识嫌疑犯。在其他情况下，证人可能对嫌疑人有一定程度的事先熟悉。人们通常认为，当证人事先熟悉嫌疑犯时，他们的指认就一定是准确的。然而，最近的研究表明，即使证人事先熟悉嫌疑人，错误也可能发生。目前的研究旨在了解目击者对熟悉的嫌疑人的指认在什么情况下可能是准确的，而在什么情况下可能会出错。该研究在实验室和现场环境中测试了基于理论的假设，以提供可能高度概括的结果。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学方面的培训。这项研究的一个关键部分是通过多个学生多样性更大的机构从不同的参与者池中收集数据。这也将有助于培养不同类型的学生研究助理。提出了一系列的实验室和现场实验来研究先前熟悉度对目击者识别的影响。该研究通过指定在目击事件发生之前，随着面孔变得熟悉，在目击事件期间，以及在识别任务期间发生的因素，然后系统地着手解决这些问题，为理解目击者识别设置中的熟悉面孔识别提供了一个理论动机框架。该方法的一个新颖部分是使用分类/个性化模型来证明证人与另一个人之间互动的定性方面在熟悉阶段可能是至关重要的。本研究也将基础研究从知觉延伸到目击者辨认的应用领域。在即将到来的大学新生夏令营期间进行的一系列创新的实地实验将为检验结果的生态有效性提供机会。这项研究的结果将提供一个更清晰的画面，什么时候熟悉的面孔识别可能是可靠的，什么时候可能不太可靠，并将为刑事司法实践提供信息。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.