TY - JOUR PY - 2016// TI - Eyewitness accounts: false facts, false memories, and false identification JO - Journal of crime and justice A1 - Rose, Chris A1 - Beck, Victoria SP - 243 EP - 263 VL - 39 IS - 2 N2 - With an experimental design, we assess the reliability of eyewitness identification. After viewing a staged nonviolent crime, subjects heard a confederate provide an inaccurate description of the criminal. Subjects were then randomly placed in one of several experimental conditions, and their ability to identify the criminal was assessed. While subjects were highly confident in their ability to accurately identify the perpetrator, their ability to provide accurate information about the perpetrator was relatively low. All of the following were shown to significantly impact the probability that our eyewitnesses could provide accurate eyewitness information: length of time between the subject witnessing the crime and being asked to identify the perpetrator; the subjects' physical distance from the witnessed crime; the content of the photo lineup (whether or not the criminal was included); and prelineup instructions provided to the eyewitness. Similar to prior research, our results highlight the dangerous fallibility of eyewitness identification, particularly for co-witness contamination.

Language: en

LA - en SN - 0735-648X UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0735648X.2014.940999 ID - ref1 ER -