@article{ref1,
title="The mystery man can help reduce false identification for child witnesses: Evidence from video line-ups",
journal="Applied cognitive psychology",
year="2013",
author="Havard, Catriona and Memon, Amina",
volume="27",
number="1",
pages="50-59",
abstract="It is well established that children (as young as 5 years) can correctly identify a target from a target present (TP) line-up as accurately as adults; however, when shown a target absent (TA) line-up, children make more false identifications. In the present study, children aged 5-7 and 8-11 years viewed a film of a staged theft, then 1-2 days later were shown either a TP or TA video line-up. Half of the witnesses viewed line-ups that included a 'mystery man' (a black silhouette with a white question mark), which they could select if they did not recognise anyone from the line-up. When the 'mystery man' was present in the line-up, there were significantly fewer false identifications for the TA line-ups. This study shows that including a silhouette in a video line-up can help reduce false identifications for children as young as 5 years of age, without reducing correct identifications. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.<p /><p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0888-4080",
doi="10.1002/acp.2870",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/acp.2870"
}