Therre Amelie, Bell Raoul, Menne Nicola Marie, Mayer Carolin, Lichtenhagen Ulla, Buchner Axel
Department of Experimental Psychology, Heinrich Heine University, Universitätsstraße 1, 40225, Düsseldorf, Germany.
Sci Rep. 2025 Aug 4;15(1):28382. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-13937-w.
Police lineups are conducted with varying delays between the crime and the lineup. Crime-to-lineup delays may adversely affect the detection of the presence and absence of the culprit in the lineup and may potentially affect guessing-based selection. In the present study we examined how these processes change across four crime-to-lineup delays. Participants viewed a staged-crime video and then completed simultaneous photo lineups after no delay or after a delay of one day, one week or one month. The results showed a significant decline in the probability of culprit-presence detection. The form of the decline is best described by a power function with the most rapid decline occurring at short crime-to-lineup delays. Eyewitnesses did not compensate the decline in culprit-presence detection by increasing guessing-based selection, as demonstrated by the fact that the probability of guessing-based selection remained constant across crime-to-lineup delays. The findings underscore the critical importance of conducting lineups as soon as possible after a crime to maximize the probability of memory-based-culprit detection.
警方列队辨认在犯罪发生与列队辨认之间存在不同的时间间隔。从犯罪到列队辨认的延迟可能会对在列队中识别罪犯是否在场产生不利影响，并可能潜在地影响基于猜测的选择。在本研究中，我们考察了这些过程在四种从犯罪到列队辨认的延迟情况下是如何变化的。参与者观看了一段模拟犯罪视频，然后在无延迟、延迟一天、一周或一个月后完成同步照片列队辨认。结果显示，识别出罪犯在场的概率显著下降。这种下降形式最好用幂函数来描述，在犯罪到列队辨认的短延迟情况下下降最为迅速。正如基于猜测的选择概率在不同的犯罪到列队辨认延迟中保持不变这一事实所表明的那样，目击者并没有通过增加基于猜测的选择来弥补识别罪犯在场概率的下降。这些发现强调了在犯罪后尽快进行列队辨认对于最大限度地提高基于记忆识别罪犯的概率至关重要。
