Estimation of eyewitness error rates in fair and biased lineups.
Ryan J. Fitzgerald, Colin Tredoux, Stefana Juncu
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: The risk of mistaken identification for innocent suspects in lineups can be estimated by correcting the overall error rate by the number of people in the lineup. We compared this nominal size correction to a new effective size correction, which adjusts the error rate for the number of plausible lineup members. HYPOTHESES: We hypothesized that (a) increasing lineup bias would increase misidentifications of a designated innocent suspect; (b) with the effective size correction, increasing lineup bias would also increase the estimate of innocent-suspect misidentifications; and (c) with the nominal size correction, lineup bias would have no effect on the estimate of innocent-suspect misidentifications. METHOD: = 686, 405, and 1,531, respectively), participants observed a staged crime and completed a fair or biased lineup. RESULTS: = 0.84, 95% CI [0.60, 1.18]. CONCLUSIONS: Most lineups include a combination of plausible and implausible lineup members. Contrary to the nominal size correction, which ignores implausible lineup members, the effective size correction is sensitive to implausible lineup members and accounts for lineup bias when estimating the risk of innocent suspect misidentifications. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).