scholarly journals Providing Eyewitness Confidence Judgements During Versus After Eyewitness Interviews Does Not Affect the Confidence-Accuracy Relationship

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Rebecca Spearing ◽  
Kimberley A. Wade
Keyword(s):  
Memory Test ◽  
Accurate Identification ◽  
Eyewitness Confidence ◽  
Memory Accuracy ◽  
Mock Crime ◽  
Witness Interviews ◽  
Accuracy Relationship

Recent studies suggest that highly confident eyewitnesses are likely to provide highly accurate identification evidence, at least in some conditions. Yet few studies have investigated the confidence-accuracy relationship in witness interviews or exactly when confidence judgements should be taken. Across three experiments, 831 adults answered questions about a mock crime and rated their confidence in each response. Participants gave their confidence immediately after each response or at the end of the memory test. The timing of the confidence judgement did not affect the confidence-accuracy relationship, and the confidence-accuracy relationship remained strong even when participants encoded the event under poor visibility conditions. When participants were unknowingly exposed to misinformation, however, the confidence-accuracy relationship was substantially weakened—participants became highly over-confident in the accuracy of their memories. These findings help to refine the parameters in which witness confidence serves as a useful indicator of memory accuracy.

Long Retention Intervals Impair the Confidence-Accuracy Relationship for Eyewitness Recall

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Rebecca Spearing ◽  
Kimberley A. Wade
Keyword(s):  
Retention Interval ◽  
Cued Recall ◽  
Eyewitness Confidence ◽  
Eyewitness Accuracy ◽  
Memory Accuracy ◽  
Retrieval Fluency ◽  
Retention Intervals ◽  
Mock Crime ◽  
Very High ◽  
Accuracy Relationship

A growing body of research suggests that confidence judgements can provide a useful indicator of memory accuracy under some conditions. One factor known to affect eyewitness accuracy, yet rarely examined in the confidence-accuracy literature, is retention interval. Using calibration analyses, we investigated how retention interval affects the confidence-accuracy relationship for eyewitness recall. In total, 611 adults watched a mock crime video and completed a cued-recall test either immediately, after 1 week, or after 1 month. Long (1 month) delays led to lower memory accuracy, lower confidence judgements, and impaired the confidence-accuracy relationship compared to shorter (immediate and 1 week) delays. Long-delay participants who reported very high levels of confidence tended to be over-confident in the accuracy of their memories compared to other participants. Self-rated memory ability, however, did not predict eyewitness confidence or the confidence-accuracy relationship. We discuss the findings in relation to cue-utilization theory and a retrieval-fluency account.

scholarly journals Eyewitness identification performance is not affected by time-of-day optimality

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergii Yaremenko ◽  
Melanie Sauerland ◽  
Lorraine Hope
Keyword(s):  
Eyewitness Identification ◽  
Time Of Day ◽  
Decision Time ◽  
Identification Accuracy ◽  
Optimal Time ◽  
Identification Performance ◽  
Accurate Identification ◽  
Facial Stimuli ◽  
Time Accuracy ◽  
Accuracy Relationship

AbstractThe circadian rhythm regulates arousal levels throughout the day and determines optimal periods for engaging in mental activities. Individuals differ in the time of day at which they reach their peak: Morning-type individuals are at their best in the morning and evening types perform better in the evening. Performance in recall and recognition of non-facial stimuli is generally superior at an individual’s circadian peak. In two studies (Ns = 103 and 324), we tested the effect of time-of-testing optimality on eyewitness identification performance. Morning- and evening-type participants viewed stimulus films depicting staged crimes and made identification decisions from target-present and target-absent lineups either at their optimal or non-optimal time-of-day. We expected that participants would make more accurate identification decisions and that the confidence-accuracy and decision time-accuracy relationships would be stronger at optimal compared to non-optimal time of day. In Experiment 1, identification accuracy was unexpectedly superior at non-optimal compared to optimal time of day in target-present lineups. In Experiment 2, identification accuracy did not differ between the optimal and non-optimal time of day. Contrary to our expectations, confidence-accuracy relationship was generally stronger at non-optimal compared to optimal time of day. In line with our predictions, non-optimal testing eliminated decision-time-accuracy relationship in Experiment 1.

scholarly journals The Relationship Between Eyewitness Confidence and Identification Accuracy: A New Synthesis

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
John T. Wixted ◽  
Gary L. Wells
Keyword(s):  
Eyewitness Identification ◽  
Police Department ◽  
Field Studies ◽  
Information Value ◽  
Identification Accuracy ◽  
High Confidence ◽  
Testing Conditions ◽  
Eyewitness Confidence ◽  
New Synthesis ◽  
Mock Crime

Summary The U.S. legal system increasingly accepts the idea that the confidence expressed by an eyewitness who identified a suspect from a lineup provides little information as to the accuracy of that identification. There was a time when this pessimistic assessment was entirely reasonable because of the questionable eyewitness-identification procedures that police commonly employed. However, after more than 30 years of eyewitness-identification research, our understanding of how to properly conduct a lineup has evolved considerably, and the time seems ripe to ask how eyewitness confidence informs accuracy under more pristine testing conditions (e.g., initial, uncontaminated memory tests using fair lineups, with no lineup administrator influence, and with an immediate confidence statement). Under those conditions, mock-crime studies and police department field studies have consistently shown that, for adults, (a) confidence and accuracy are strongly related and (b) high-confidence suspect identifications are remarkably accurate. However, when certain non-pristine testing conditions prevail (e.g., when unfair lineups are used), the accuracy of even a high-confidence suspect ID is seriously compromised. Unfortunately, some jurisdictions have not yet made reforms that would create pristine testing conditions and, hence, our conclusions about the reliability of high-confidence identifications cannot yet be applied to those jurisdictions. However, understanding the information value of eyewitness confidence under pristine testing conditions can help the criminal justice system to simultaneously achieve both of its main objectives: to exonerate the innocent (by better appreciating that initial, low-confidence suspect identifications are error prone) and to convict the guilty (by better appreciating that initial, high-confidence suspect identifications are surprisingly accurate under proper testing conditions).

scholarly journals The impact of sleep on eyewitness identifications

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (12) ◽  
pp. 170501 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. P. Morgan ◽  
J. Tamminen ◽  
T. M. Seale-Carlisle ◽  
L. Mickes
Keyword(s):  
Recognition Memory ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Memory Test ◽  
Recognition Memory Test ◽  
Innocent Suspect ◽  
Sleep Condition ◽  
Mock Crime ◽  
Eyewitness Identifications ◽  
Impact Reliability ◽  
The Impact

Sleep aids the consolidation of recently acquired memories. Evidence strongly indicates that sleep yields substantial improvements on recognition memory tasks relative to an equivalent period of wake. Despite the known benefits that sleep has on memory, researchers have not yet investigated the impact of sleep on eyewitness identifications. Eyewitnesses to crimes are often presented with a line-up (which is a type of recognition memory test) that contains the suspect (who is innocent or guilty) and fillers (who are known to be innocent). Sleep may enhance the ability to identify the guilty suspect and not identify the innocent suspect (i.e. discriminability). Sleep may also impact reliability (i.e. the likelihood that the identified suspect is guilty). In the current study, we manipulated the presence or the absence of sleep in a forensically relevant memory task. Participants witnessed a video of a mock crime, made an identification or rejected the line-up, and rated their confidence. Critically, some participants slept between witnessing the crime and making a line-up decision, while others remained awake. The prediction that participants in the sleep condition would have greater discriminability compared to participants in the wake condition was not supported. There were also no differences in reliability.

scholarly journals Side- and similarity-biases during confidence conformity

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Winny Wing Yin Yue ◽  
Kiyofumi Miyoshi ◽  
Wendy Wing Sze YUE
Keyword(s):  
Confidence Rating ◽  
Confidence Level ◽  
Human Motion ◽  
Memory Test ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Confidence Levels ◽  
Memory Accuracy ◽  
Memory Conformity ◽  
Subjective Confidence

Memory conformity may develop when people are confronted with some divergent memories of others in social situations and knowingly/unknowingly incorporate these exogenous memories into their owns. Earlier research suggests that memory conformity is more prominent in subjects who bear low confidence towards their memory accuracy. Nonetheless, it is unclear whether and how this subjective confidence may likewise be influenced by the confidence levels of others. Here, we followed participant’s confidence transformation quantitatively over three confederate sessions in a memory test. After studying a set of human motion videos, participants had to answer whether a particular video had appeared before by indicating their side (i.e. Yes/No) and the associated confidence rating simultaneously. Participants were allowed to adjust their responses as they were being shown randomly-generated confederates’ answers and confidence values. Overall, we found that participants tended to become committed to their side early on and gain confidence gradually over subsequent sessions. This polarizing behavior may be explained by two kinds of preferences: (1) Participant’s confidence enhancement towards same-sided confederates was greater in magnitude compared to the decrement towards an opposite-sided confederate; and (2) Participants had the most effective confidence boost when the same-sided confederates shared similar, but not considerably different, confidence level to theirs. In other words, humans exhibit side- and similarity-biases during confidence conformity. Interestingly, among our participants, those who built up their confidence upon others’ retained a higher level of flexibility to change than those who had strong initial confidence. Thus, confidence polarization may not be a totally irreversible trend.

scholarly journals Estimating the reliability of eyewitness identifications from police lineups

2015 ◽  
Vol 113 (2) ◽  
pp. 304-309 ◽  
Author(s):  
John T. Wixted ◽  
Laura Mickes ◽  
John C. Dunn ◽  
Steven E. Clark ◽  
William Wells
Keyword(s):  
Eyewitness Identification ◽  
Police Department ◽  
The United States ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Eyewitness Confidence ◽  
Detection Model ◽  
Simultaneous Lineups ◽  
Simultaneous Procedure ◽  
Mock Crime ◽  
Eyewitness Identifications

Laboratory-based mock crime studies have often been interpreted to mean that (i) eyewitness confidence in an identification made from a lineup is a weak indicator of accuracy and (ii) sequential lineups are diagnostically superior to traditional simultaneous lineups. Largely as a result, juries are increasingly encouraged to disregard eyewitness confidence, and up to 30% of law enforcement agencies in the United States have adopted the sequential procedure. We conducted a field study of actual eyewitnesses who were assigned to simultaneous or sequential photo lineups in the Houston Police Department over a 1-y period. Identifications were made using a three-point confidence scale, and a signal detection model was used to analyze and interpret the results. Our findings suggest that (i) confidence in an eyewitness identification from a fair lineup is a highly reliable indicator of accuracy and (ii) if there is any difference in diagnostic accuracy between the two lineup formats, it likely favors the simultaneous procedure.

Immunolabelling of glomerular deposits in kidney biopsies routinely fixed in glutaraldehyde

1989 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
pp. 910-911
Author(s):  
Ś Lhoták ◽  
I. Alexopoulou ◽  
G. T. Simon
Keyword(s):  
Uv Light ◽  
Kidney Diseases ◽  
Light Chains ◽  
Microscopical Level ◽  
Accurate Identification ◽  
Light Microscopical Level ◽  
Dense Deposits ◽  
Cacodylate Buffer ◽  
Glomerular Deposits ◽  
Prognostic Importance

Various kidney diseases are characterized by the presence of dense deposits in the glomeruli. The type(s) of immunoglobulins (Igs) present in the dense deposits are characteristic of the disease. The accurate Identification of the deposits is therefore of utmost diagnostic and prognostic importance. Immunofluorescence (IF) used routinely at the light microscopical level is unable to detect and characterize small deposits found in early stages of glomerulonephritis. Although conventional TEM is able to localize such deposits, it is not capable of determining their nature. It was therefore attempted to immunolabel at EM level IgG, IgA IgM, C3, fibrinogen and kappa and lambda Ig light chains commonly found in glomerular deposits on routinely fixed ( 2% glutaraldehyde (GA) in 0.1M cacodylate buffer) kidney biopsies.The unosmicated tissue was embedded in LR White resin polymerized by UV light at -10°C. A postembedding immunogold technique was employed

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