ABSTRACT

Over the past 45 years, psychological scientists have invested a tremendous amount of effort into increasing the accuracy of suspect identifications from eyewitness lineup procedures. Those efforts have paid dividends, leading to the development of several practices that increase the accuracy of suspect identifications. Meanwhile, lineup rejections have largely been written off as lacking diagnostic value and little effort has been placed into understanding (1) why lineup rejections are less diagnostic than suspect identifications, and (2) how to increase the diagnostic value of lineup rejections. We show that preventing innocent-suspect identifications is not equivalent to demonstrating innocence and highlight several consequences of not being able to clear innocent suspects from police suspicion. We then review recent evidence, grounded in Signal Detection Theory, suggesting that lineup rejections are less diagnostic than suspect identifications because it is harder to reject a lineup of several faces than it is to identify a single face. When lineups are modified so that witnesses provide rejection ratings for each non-identified lineup member, rejection accuracy drastically increases. We highlight several questions for future research examining the potential for eyewitness memory to demonstrate innocence and question what impact suspect rejections might play in multiple-witness cases.

摘要

在过去的 45 年里，心理科学家投入了大量的精力来提高目击证人排队程序中嫌疑人识别的准确性。这些努力取得了成效，导致了多种提高嫌疑人识别准确性的做法的发展。与此同时，阵容拒绝在很大程度上被认为缺乏诊断价值，并且很少努力去理解（1）为什么阵容拒绝的诊断性不如可疑识别，以及（2）如何提高阵容拒绝的诊断价值。我们表明，阻止无辜嫌疑人的身份识别并不等于证明无辜，并强调了无法消除警方怀疑的无辜嫌疑人的几个后果。然后我们回顾最近的证据，基于信号检测理论，表明阵容拒绝的诊断性不如可疑识别，因为拒绝多张面孔的阵容比识别单张面孔更困难。当阵容被修改以便目击者为每个未识别的阵容成员提供拒绝评级时，拒绝准确性大大增加。我们强调了未来研究的几个问题，以检验目击者记忆证明无罪的潜力，并质疑其影响是什么 剔除准确率大幅提高。我们强调了未来研究的几个问题，以检验目击者记忆证明无罪的潜力，并质疑其影响是什么 剔除准确率大幅提高。我们强调了未来研究的几个问题，以检验目击者记忆证明无罪的潜力，并质疑其影响是什么怀疑拒绝可能会在多个证人案件中发挥作用。