Face Recognition
Identification Evidence
Earwitness Testimony
Aspect of Witnesses
The identification of a suspect form a lineup
STUDY
Meta-analysis of 9 studies
Post-lineup confidence is a stronger predictor of identification accuracy than is pre-lineup confidence
The pre-lineup confidence- accuracy correlation is trivial in magnitude.
Mistaken identifications
Much of aspects have little affect on performance
Gender, intelligent, confident, a member of a public or a police officer
The recognition of face involves 3 stages
Is the face familiar?
How is the face similiar
What is the name of the person?
Voice identification is more difficult than visual identification
Voice identification is more likely than visual identification to be wrong
Suggestive lineup procedure
increase the likelihood of eyewitnesses making an identification regardless of whether they truly believe the perpetrator is present or not.
65+ make more mistakes
not due to poor vision
they have difficulty remembering
Unfair lineup procedure
increase the likelihood of eyewitnesses identifying the suspect rather than other members of the lineup.
Mistakes can occur at any stage
Feel pressure to make an identification
Familiarity
Person may fail to recognize an unfamiliar face or conversely incorrectly recognizing an unfamiliar face as familiar.
Expectations
e.g. we expect bad things to have been committed by nasty people and good thing by attractive person.
General public share ideas of what certain types of criminal look like
The recognition of unfamiliar faces is more likely to be influenced by various estimator and system variables, including viewing angle, lighting, exposure time and the introduction of misleading information.
Lineup instruction bias
Instructions lead eyewitness to assume that the perpetrator in in the lineup
Archival Study
The present study of the accuracy of witness descriptions confirms the results commonly found in both laboratory and real-life studies:
Suspect "stands out" from the lineup because there are an in sufficient number of foils and/or they do not match the witness's description of the perpetrator
Foil bias
Completeness of the descriptions was poor
Descriptions contained more permanent than temporary characteristics
Suspect is wearing clothing that is same or similar to that worn by the perpetrator during the crime.
Clothing bias
Descriptions are usually vague and general; witnesses mostly describe general characteristics of the offenders, such as gender, race, height, and age. In describing these characteristics the witnesses are more often correct than wrong.
Who conducts the lineup
Improving the accuracy of identification evidence
All members of the lineup are presented simultaneously
The person conducting the lineup should not know which member of the lineup is the suspect.
Presentation bias
Structure of the lineup
Instruction on viewing
Eyewitnesses should be told that perpetrator may or may not be presentin the lineup
Suspect should not stand out from the lineup on the basis of eyewitness' descriptions of the perpetrator or any other aspects that draw attention to the suspect.
When the police officer conducting the identification procedure unintentionally
Investigator bias
False & Recovered Memory
Also, person conducting the identification procedure does not know which member of the lineup is the suspect
Confidence, time and memory
Obtaining confidence statements
1990s childhood sexual abuse and other form of abuse that were no reported until adulthood.
Negative relationship between the time eyewitnesses take to identify a suspect and the accuracy of the identification
Eyewitness should be asked to provide confidence statements regarding their identifications prior toany feedback on whether or not they identified the suspect.
False memory
Confidence-accuracy relationship is weak.
Recovered memory
Represent unconscious fabrication
Recovery of previously inaccessible memories
Extensive use of memory recovery techniques can lead to false memory syndrome.
Innocence Project
The Innocence Project, founded in 1992 by Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck at Cardozo School of Law, exonerates the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and reforms the criminal justice system to prevent future injustic
Masumiyet Projesi
Started at İstanbul Üniversitesi Adli Tıp Kurumu in 1996
Conclusion
The Fallibility of Eyewitness Testimony
The evidence comes from eyewitness testimony should be supported with other evidence otherwise they are not enough to decide whether a suspect is guilty or not.
Passive, copying processes like a camera
Descriptive Evidence
The interviewing of witnesses provides the police with an opportunity to gather important information that is descriptive evidence
Active and constructive processes
However
Contamination is possible due to use of leading questions and/or introduction of misleading information
Study
collided
bumped
contacted
hit
"About how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?"
Attention selectively on certain aspects
smashed collided bumped hit contacted
broken glass
Reconstructive nature of memory
Emotion & Memory
smashed %16
hit %7
Weapon Focus Effect
Flashbulb Memories
Appropriate techniques need to be used to get information from eyewitnesses.
System Variables
&
Estimator Variables
"Did another car pass the red Datsun while it was stopped at the stop sign/ yield sign?"
Reduction in the ability to identify other aspects of the crime including the perpetrator.
Attention to perpetrator's weapon
Experimental Studies
Weapon condition
Control condition
Fixate on the object for a longer period of time in the weapon contition
Less acurate in their decriptions of the person
Real Life
This effectmay be accounted for by the presence of weapon increasing already high levels of stress.
Ethical issues
Context of eyewitness testimony
Detailed and accurate memories created during significant and unexpected events
Archival & Field
Experimental
Memories for violent events can be highly accurate.
higher level of emotional arousal
a high level of surprise
a high level of emotional arousal
Attributional Biases, Schemas & Stereotypes
More detail
poorer accuracy
factors that influence the accuracy of eyewitnes testimony
Difficult to determine of accuracy
Interpret the same crime differently according to their expectations
are under the control of the criminal justice system
75% in the consistent information
41% in the inconsistent information
are not under the control of the criminal justice system
see what they expect to see
&
ignore what they do not expect to see
Affect retrieval stage
Occur at the event
Affect encoding stage
Schemas and stereotypes reflect people's knowledge and understanding of the world and may lead to attributional biases that direct attention and influence memories for people and event
Include the capacity of investigatory procedures used by the criminal justice system to gather accurate descriptive and identification evidence.
e.g., police interview techniques and lineup procedures.
Witness characteristics
age, sex, race and personality
Event characteristics
time of day, duration of the incident and seriousness of the incident...
more than 50% of cases
What happens to the original memories?
Alteration hypothesis
Original memory no longer exist it Transformed into a new memory
Coexistence theory
Original and the altered memories and that both can potentially be recalled.
more acurate information
Improving the accuracy of descriptive evidence
can be taught in a few hours
Source misattribution theory.
Cognitive Interview
Develops a rapport
Introduction
Source monitoring error lead to misleading information being incorrectly attributed to the original memory
Asks to provide witness's account of events
Should not interrupt
Open ended questions
Open-ended narration
Follow up questions to make sure that he or she has provided an exhaustive account of events
Probing
Opportuniy to correct errors and provide additional information
Check that is accurate
Review
Collects any necessary details regarding the witness and ends the interview.
Witness is given the opportunity to get touch if he or she remember anything else abount the event.
Close
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