Department of Psychology, University of Warwick.
Department of Psychology, University of Warwick
Psychol Sci. 2016 Sep;27(9):1227-39. doi: 10.1177/0956797616655789. Epub 2016 Jul 24.
Eyewitness-identification studies have focused on the idea that unfair lineups (i.e., ones in which the police suspect stands out) make witnesses more willing to identify the police suspect. We examined whether unfair lineups also influence subjects' ability to distinguish between innocent and guilty suspects and their ability to judge the accuracy of their identification. In a single experiment (N = 8,925), we compared three fair-lineup techniques used by the police with unfair lineups in which we did nothing to prevent distinctive suspects from standing out. Compared with the fair lineups, doing nothing not only increased subjects' willingness to identify the suspect but also markedly impaired subjects' ability to distinguish between innocent and guilty suspects. Accuracy was also reduced at every level of confidence. These results advance theory on witnesses' identification performance and have important practical implications for how police should construct lineups when suspects have distinctive features.
目击证人辨认研究一直关注这样一种观点，即不公正的列队（即警方怀疑某人站在其中）会使证人更愿意指认警方嫌疑人。我们研究了不公正的列队是否也会影响受试者区分无辜和有罪嫌疑人的能力，以及他们判断自己辨认准确性的能力。在一项单独的实验（N=8925）中，我们比较了警方使用的三种公正列队技术与我们不采取任何措施防止突出嫌疑人的不公正列队。与公正的列队相比，不采取任何措施不仅增加了受试者指认嫌疑人的意愿，而且明显损害了他们区分无辜和有罪嫌疑人的能力。在每个置信水平上，准确性也都降低了。这些结果推进了关于证人识别表现的理论，对于警方在嫌疑人具有明显特征时应该如何构建列队具有重要的实际意义。
