Memory and Decision in Eyewitness Identification

项目摘要目击者辨认的一个决定性特征是，目击者的辨认意愿可能与其记忆的准确性无关。换句话说，证人可能觉得有必要进行身份识别，并可能认为进行身份识别(而不是说“不是以上所说的”或“我不知道”)是“正确”的事情，即使他或她对肇事者的记忆不是很清楚，即使指认名单中没有人似乎是一个明确的选择。鉴于法律学者认为目击者的错误辨认是美国错误定罪的主要原因(Gross，Jacoby，Matheon，D Montgomery，&amp；Patil，(2005)；Huff，Rattner，&Amp；Sagarin，1996)，辨认意愿和正确辨认能力之间的脱节给刑事司法系统带来了严重的问题。犹豫不决的证人可能无法指认有罪的人，而过于情愿的证人可能会错误地指认无辜的人。拟议的研究试图了解证人做出鉴定决定的方式，以及他们的决定过程和策略可能如何因(A)阵容组成、(B)阵容呈现以及(C)证人和管理阵容的人之间的沟通而被修改。该提案的学术价值在于它独特地使用了数学和计算机模拟建模技术，与经验实验室研究密切协调，以解决作为目击证人辨认决定基础的记忆和决策过程的基本问题。这些技术允许模型生成可以与人类数据进行比较的定量预测，以便评估我们关于目击者识别的理论与目击者实际做的相符程度。这项研究也将产生广泛的影响：(A)创建一个研究和教学实验室，培训博士和本科生进行理论驱动和应用研究；(B)让加州大学河滨分校的不同学生团体积极参与；(C)通过开发计算机程序、刺激材料和数据档案来促进研究基础设施，其他研究人员可以使用这些计算机程序、刺激材料和数据档案，以及在专业跨学科会议上发表和公开介绍研究；以及(D)加深我们对心理学和法律研究的复杂交叉的理解，这与刑事司法系统内的重要社会问题有关。

Project Summary One of the defining characteristics of eyewitness identification is that a witness's willingness to make an identification may vary independently of the accuracy of that witness's memory. In other words, a witness may feel compelled to make an identification, and may believe that making an identification (as opposed to saying "none-of-the-above" or "I don't know") is the "right" thing to do, even if his or her memory of the perpetrator is not very clear, and even if no person in the lineup appears to be a clear choice. Given the view among legal scholars that eyewitness misidentification is the primary cause of wrongful conviction in the United States (Gross, Jacoby, Matheson, D Montgomery, & Patil, (2005); Huff, Rattner, & Sagarin, 1996), this disconnect between the willingness to identify and the ability to correctly identify presents a serious problem to the criminal justice system. Hesitant witnesses may fail to identify the guilty and overly-willing witnesses may falsely identify the innocent. The proposed research seeks to understand the way that witnesses make identification decisions and how their decision processes and strategies may be modified due to (a) lineup composition, (b) lineup presentation, and (c) communication between the witness and the person administering the lineup. The intellectual merit of the proposal lies in its unique use of mathematical and computer-simulation modeling techniques closely coordinated with empirical laboratory research to address fundamental questions about the memory and decision processes that underlie eyewitness identification decisions. These techniques allow the model to generate quantitative predictions that can be compared to human data in order to evaluate how well our theories about eyewitness identification correspond to what eyewitnesses actually do. The research will also have a broad impact as well by: (a) creating a research and teaching laboratory to train doctoral and undergraduate students in theoretically-driven and applied research, (b) involving the active participation of a diverse student body at the University of California, Riverside, (c) contributing to the research infrastructure by developing computer programs, stimulus materials, and data archives, available to other researchers, in addition to the published and public presentations of the research at professional interdisciplinary meetings, and (d) deepening our understanding of a complex intersection of psychological and legal research, that has relevance to important social issues within the criminal justice system.