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Unfair lineups make witnesses more likely to confuse innocent and guilty suspects
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Colloff, Melissa F., Wade, Kimberley A. and Strange, D. (2016) Unfair lineups make witnesses more likely to confuse innocent and guilty suspects. Psychological Science, 27 (9). pp. 1227-1239. doi:10.1177/0956797616655789 ISSN 1467-9280.
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797616655789
Abstract
Eyewitness-identification studies have focused on the idea that unfair lineups (i.e., ones in which the police suspect stands out) make witnesses more willing to identify the police suspect. We examined whether unfair lineups also influence subjects’ ability to distinguish between innocent and guilty suspects and their ability to judge the accuracy of their identification. In a single experiment (N = 8,925), we compared three fair-lineup techniques used by the police with unfair lineups in which we did nothing to prevent distinctive suspects from standing out. Compared with the fair lineups, doing nothing not only increased subjects’ willingness to identify the suspect but also markedly impaired subjects’ ability to distinguish between innocent and guilty suspects. Accuracy was also reduced at every level of confidence. These results advance theory on witnesses’ identification performance and have important practical implications for how police should construct lineups when suspects have distinctive features.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Divisions: | Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine > Science > Psychology | ||||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Psychological Science | ||||||||
| Publisher: | Sage Publications Ltd. | ||||||||
| ISSN: | 1467-9280 | ||||||||
| Official Date: | 1 September 2016 | ||||||||
| Dates: |
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| Volume: | 27 | ||||||||
| Number: | 9 | ||||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 1227-1239 | ||||||||
| DOI: | 10.1177/0956797616655789 | ||||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||||
| Date of first compliant deposit: | 31 May 2016 | ||||||||
| Date of first compliant Open Access: | 22 August 2016 |
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