Dodson Chad S, Dobolyi David G
Department of Psychology.
Law Hum Behav. 2015 Jun;39(3):266-80. doi: 10.1037/lhb0000120. Epub 2015 Jan 19.
How do we know eyewitness statements of confidence are interpreted accurately by others? When eyewitnesses provide a verbal expression of confidence about a lineup identification, such as I'm fairly certain it's him, how well do others understand the intended meaning of this statement of confidence? And, how is this perception of the meaning influenced by justifications of the level of confidence, such as when eyewitnesses say, I remember his chin? The answers to these questions are unknown, as there is no research on how others interpret the intended meaning of eyewitness confidence. Three experiments show that an additional justification of confidence, relative to seeing a confidence statement alone, can increase misunderstanding in others' estimation of the meaning of the expression of confidence. Moreover, this justification-induced increase in misunderstanding only occurs when the justification refers to an observable facial feature and not when it refers to an unobservable quality (e.g., He is very familiar). Even more noteworthy, both Experiments 2 and 3 show that this featural justification effect is strongest when eyewitnesses express absolute certainty in an identification, such as by stating I am positive. When a highly confident assertion is accompanied by a featural justification others will be most likely to misinterpret the intended meaning.
我们如何知道他人能准确理解目击者关于自信程度的陈述呢？当目击者对列队辨认给出自信的口头表达时，比如“我相当确定是他”，其他人能在多大程度上理解这种自信陈述的本意呢？而且，这种对含义的认知是如何受到自信程度理由的影响的呢，比如当目击者说“我记得他的下巴”时？这些问题的答案尚不清楚，因为目前还没有关于他人如何理解目击者自信陈述本意的研究。三项实验表明，相对于只看到一个自信陈述而言，额外给出自信的理由会增加他人在估计自信表达含义时的误解。此外，这种因理由导致的误解增加仅在理由涉及可观察到的面部特征时才会出现，而当理由涉及不可观察的特质（例如“他非常面熟”）时则不会出现。更值得注意的是，实验2和实验3都表明，当目击者在辨认中表达绝对确定时，比如宣称“我确定”，这种基于特征的理由效应最为强烈。当一个高度自信的断言伴有基于特征的理由时，其他人最有可能误解其本意。
