Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

knowledge on the subject both from empirical litera-

ture and their experiences in the field. Law enforce-

ment personnel were in agreement with the expert

community on only 12 of the 30 statements (40%),

among them the role of attitudes and expectancies,

the suggestibility of the child eyewitness, and the

cross-race effect. Notably, they perceived the influ-

ence of only two of the eight (25%) system variables

in the same manner as the experts. Experts and law

enforcement personnel did not differ in their judgment

of the biasing effect of showups and the importance

of members of a lineup resembling the description of

the suspect. Law enforcement personnel, however,

had significantly lower agreement rates than experts

with respect to all other system variables (e.g., the

malleability of eyewitness confidence, the impact

of question wording). Of interest is the fact that the

most significant differences between the agreement

rates for law enforcement personnel and experts were

observed for statements concerning the presentation

format of the lineup and the instructions administered

during the lineup. When agreeing with statements

endorsed by 75% of experts, judges and law enforce-

ment personnel were equally accurate (65.9% and

63.8%, respectively).

General acceptance can be indexed not only in

terms of the degree of correspondence among opin-

ions across various participants in trial proceedings

but also in terms of the decisions made by policymak-

ers with respect to the implementation of applications

derived from empirical psycholegal research. For

example, a panel of legal scholars, law enforcement

practitioners, and psycholegal experts made recom-

mendations as to procedures that should be adopted

by the police when they obtain eyewitness evidence.

One example of this is the recommendation that wit-

nesses and those law enforcement officers who con-

duct lineups both be unaware of who is a suspect and

who is not (double-blind procedures) when lineups

are conducted. Some states (e.g., New Jersey, North

Carolina, and Wisconsin) have implemented such rec-

ommendations at the time this entry was written, and

additional states are considering this and other

reforms as well.

Kevin W. Jolly and Harmon M. Hosch

See also Confidence in Identifications; Cross-Race Effect in

Eyewitness Identification; Estimator and System Variables

in Eyewitness Identification; Expert Psychological

Testimony, Admissibility Standards

Further Readings

Benton, T. R., Ross, D. F., Bradshaw, E., Thomas, W. N., &

Bradshaw, G. S. (2005). Eyewitness memory is still not

common sense: Comparing jurors, judges, and law

enforcement to eyewitness experts. Applied Cognitive

Psychology, 20,115–129.

Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals,509 U.S. 579

(1993).

Kassin, S. M., Ellsworth, P. C., & Smith, V. L. (1989). On the

general acceptance of eyewitness testimony research: A

survey of the experts. American Psychologist, 44,

1089–1098.

Kassin, S. M., Tubb, V. A., Hosch, H. M., & Memon, A.

(2001). On the general acceptance of eyewitness

testimony research: A new survey of the experts.

American Psychologist, 56,405–416.

Seltzer, R., Lopes, G. M., & Vanuti, M. (1990). Juror ability

to recognize the limitations of eyewitness identifications.

Forensic Reports, 3,121–137.

United States v. Amaral, 488 F.2d 1148 (9th Cir. 1973).

Wise, R. A., & Safer, M. A. (2004). What US judges know

and believe about eyewitness testimony. Applied

Cognitive Psychology, 18,427–443.

EYEWITNESSMEMORY

Eyewitness memory plays a pivotal role in many

criminal trials. A substantial body of psychological

research on eyewitness memory has developed over

the years. This research examines various types of

eyewitness memory, factors that influence eyewitness

memory, methods of improving eyewitness memory,

and how eyewitness memory is evaluated in the

course of investigations and criminal trials.

History of Research

on Eyewitness Memory

The advent of psychological research related to the

legal system can be traced to 1908, when Alfred Binet

demonstrated that a person’s response to questioning

could be influenced by the way in which the question

was asked. Although his work did not have a profound

influence on the legal system at the time, it was the

beginning of empirical research involving witness

testimony. Soon thereafter, William Stern actually

applied this research directly to eyewitness testimony.

He was able to demonstrate that eyewitnesses are

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