COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Social Influence in Eyewitness Identification Procedures: Do Blind Administrator Behaviors Magnify the Effects of Suspect Bias?

对无辜个人的DNA无罪证明一直表明，目击者误认是错误定罪的主要原因。造成这些目击者辨认错误的一个关键因素是社会影响，即与警方调查员的互动影响目击者辨认决定的过程。为了减少目击者辨认中的社会影响，研究人员建议实施双盲列队程序，即列队管理员不知道哪些列队成员受到怀疑。然而，即使是双盲的阵容管理员有时也会做出可能影响目击者决策的行为。这个项目将测试双盲阵容是否足以防止社会影响增加错误的目击证人身份。这些发现可能会支持制定更有效的政策改革，因为它表明有必要走向目击者识别程序的完全计算机化管理，这一做法尚未被美国执法机构采用。该项目包括一系列实验，将在双盲阵容中检查社会影响过程。首先，这些实验将识别双盲管理员发出的社会影响行为，并评估它们对目击者决策的影响。其次，实验将测试管理员在双盲阵容中的影响是否会加剧证人倾向于识别嫌疑人的阵容因素(例如，不公平的阵容、反复接触嫌疑人)的影响，从而增加目击者误认无辜嫌疑人的风险。第三，这些实验将研究社会影响效应如何在多个身份识别程序中传递，并评估一些目击者是否比其他目击者更容易受到社会影响效应的影响。第四，这些实验将检验相互竞争的心理学理论，即社会影响对辨认有罪嫌疑人或无辜嫌疑人是否有更大的影响。最后，实验将评估管理员影响对目击者信心诊断价值的影响，事实调查员(例如，法官和陪审员)依赖目击者信心来评估目击者识别证据的可靠性。这一裁决反映了NSF的法定使命，并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，被认为值得支持。

DNA exonerations of innocent individuals have consistently implicated eyewitness misidentification as a leading cause of wrongful conviction. A key factor producing these eyewitness misidentifications is social influence, or the process by which interactions with a police investigator affect eyewitnesses’ identification decisions. In an attempt to reduce social influences in eyewitness identification, researchers have recommended the implementation of double-blind lineup procedures in which the lineup administrator does not know which lineup member is under suspicion. However, even double-blind lineup administrators sometimes engage in behaviors that could influence eyewitness decision-making. This project will test whether double-blind lineups are sufficient to prevent social influence from increasing mistaken eyewitness identifications. The findings could support the development of more effective policy reforms by demonstrating a need to move toward fully computerized administration of eyewitness identification procedures, a practice that has yet to be adopted by law enforcement agencies in the United States.This project consists of a series of experiments that will examine social-influence processes in double-blind lineups. First, these experiments will identify social-influence behaviors emitted by double-blind administrators and assess their effects on eyewitness decision-making. Second, the experiments will test whether administrator influence in double-blind lineups can increase the risk of eyewitness misidentification of innocent suspects by exacerbating the effects of lineup factors that bias witnesses towards identifying the suspect (e.g., unfair lineups, repeated exposure to the suspect). Third, the experiments will examine how social-influence effects carry over across multiple identification procedures and assess whether some eyewitnesses are more vulnerable to social influence effects than others. Fourth, the experiments will test competing psychological theories regarding whether social influence has stronger effects on identifications of guilty or innocent suspects. Finally, the experiments will assess the effects of administrator influence on the diagnostic value of eyewitness confidence, which is relied upon by fact-finders (e.g., judges and jurors) to assess the reliability of eyewitness identification evidence.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.