RUI: Can Brief Social Interactions Undermine System Variable Protections Against False Eyewitness Identifications?

目击者辨认研究审查了司法系统的可控方面可以在多大程度上加以修改，以减少辨认错误，并提出了减少虚假辨认比率的阵容和照片传播的建议。然而，即使使用了推荐的程序，目击者仍能辨认出无辜的人。在拟议的研究中，我们探索这些目击者识别错误是否由短暂的社会互动形成，短暂的社会互动被定义为证人和共同证人之间或证人和光传管理员之间在识别程序开始前的任何信息交换。确定短暂的社会互动是否以及在多大程度上影响目击者的决定--即使使用了推荐的程序--有助于我们理解目击者的决定是如何做出的，并有助于形成一个知识库，从中产生具体的建议。其中可能包括减少或消除社会互动的自动传播程序，以及收集记忆信息的替代方法。简单的社会互动可能会通过操纵证人的决定标准来影响目击者的选择行为，以便证人在愿意做出肯定的辨认之前，需要更多(或更少)嫌疑人的外表和证人的记忆之间的匹配。拟议研究的关键特征是，我们假设决策标准作为简短的社会互动的函数是可塑性的，即使在推荐的程序到位的情况下也是如此。提出了两个阶段的实验。在第一阶段，测试对共同证人行为的操纵，包括共同证人识别的明显容易程度和共同证人识别的速度。这一阶段的最后一个实验是测试目击者是否能准确地报告短暂的社会互动是否影响了他们的身份识别决定。这是通过操纵反事实的指令来实现的。在第二阶段的实验中，测试了对光传播管理员的操作，包括对识别任务的难度和进行识别的压力的评论。就像在共同见证阶段一样，最后的实验操纵反事实的指示，以确定证人是否认识到社会线索影响了他们的识别决定。

Eyewitness identification research has examined the extent to which controllable aspects of the justice system can be modified to reduce identification errors and has generated recommendations for lineups and photospreads that reduce the rate of false identifications. Even when recommended procedures are used, however, eyewitnesses still identify innocent people. In the proposed research, we explore whether these eyewitness identification errors are shaped by brief social interactions, defined as any exchange of information between a witness and a co-witness or between a witness and a photospread administrator before the identification procedure begins. Determining whether and the extent to which brief social interactions affect eyewitness decisions -- even when recommended procedures are used -- advances our understanding of how eyewitness decisions are made and contributes to a knowledge base from which specific recommendations will emerge. These might include automated photospread procedures whereby social interactions are minimized or eliminated, and alternative methods of collecting memory information.Brief social interactions may affect eyewitness choosing behavior through manipulation of the witness's decision criterion so that more (or less) of a match between a suspect's appearance and the witness's memory is required by the witness before he or she is willing to make a positive identification. The critical feature of the proposed research is that we hypothesize that the decision criterion is malleable as a function of brief social interactions and even when recommended procedures are in place. Two phases of experiments are proposed. In the first phase, manipulations to co-witness behavior are tested, including the apparent ease of a co-witness's identification and the speed of a co-witness's identification. The final experiment in this phase tests if witnesses can accurately report whether brief social interactions have affected their identification decision. This is accomplished through the manipulation of counterfactual instructions. In the second phase of experiments, manipulations to photospread administrators are tested, including comments about the difficulty of the identification task and pressure to make an identification. As in the co-witness phase, the final experiment manipulates counterfactual instructions to determine whether witnesses recognize that social cues have affected their identification decision.