laboratory settings. As with the CKT, we do not know
how successful countermeasure attempts are against
the CQT in the field.AApppplliiccaattiioonn ooff tthhee CCQQTT
The CQT is in widespread application around the
world as an investigative tool, as a screening tool for
national security, and in the monitoring and treatment
of sexual offenders on their release from incarcera-
tion. In some jurisdictions, the results of polygraph
examinations are used as evidence in courts of law.
The use of the polygraph in postconviction mitigation
and sentencing seems to be growing. Although the
controversy in the scientific literature remains, the use
of the CQT worldwide seems to be accelerating.Charles Robert HontsSee alsoDetection of Deception: Use of Evidence in;
Detection of Deception in Adults; False Confessions;
Public Opinion About the Polygraph; Sex Offender
TreatmentFurther Readings
Edelman, J. (2005). Admissibility of polygraph (lie detector)
examinations. Criminal Law Journal, 29,21–36.
Faigman, D. L., Kaye, D., Saks, M. J., & Sanders, J. (Eds.).
(2005). Polygraph tests. In Modern scientific evidence:
The law and science of expert testimony(Vol. 4. Forensics
2005–2006 ed., chap. 40, pp. 547–655). Eagan, MN:
Thompson West.
Grubin, D. (2006). Accuracy and utility of post-conviction
polygraph testing of sex offenders. British Journal of
Psychiatry, 188,479–483.
Honts, C. R. (2004). The psychophysiological detection of
deception. In P. Granhag & L. Strömwall (Eds.),
Detection of deception in forensic contexts(pp. 103–123).
London: Cambridge University Press.
Kleiner, M. (2002). Handbook of polygraph testing.New
York: Academic Press.
National Research Council. (2003). The polygraph and lie
detection.Washington, DC: National Academies Press.POPOUTEFFECT IN
EYEWITNESSIDENTIFICATION
The “popout” effect refers to the subjective experi-
ence of witnesses who report virtually immediate orapparently automatic recognition of the perpetrator of
a crime from a photo array or lineup. Researchers
have detected this experience among witnesses by
asking them to endorse one of several statements
about the decision strategy they used when making
their decision about a simultaneous lineup. In some
(though not all) studies, witnesses who were accurate
more frequently endorsed statements such as “I just
recognized him, I cannot say why” and “His face just
popped out at me” (automatic processing) than did
inaccurate witnesses. The latter more often endorsed
items such as “I compared the faces with one other to
narrow the choices” and “I first eliminated the ones
that were definitely not him, then chose among the
rest” (deliberative processing). The popout effect has
been of interest to eyewitness researchers and is rele-
vant to the criminal justice system because such sub-
jective reports could potentially be used as an
indication of whether or not an identification decision
is likely to have been accurate.
Evidence for the popout effect comes almost exclu-
sively from examination of the relationship between
identification accuracy and the characteristics of the
subjective reports described above. While eyewitness
researchers might well consider popout to be intu-
itively plausible, the reliance on retrospective reports
to validate the effect is problematic. Indeed, it has
been suggested that the demands associated with pro-
viding such retrospective reports might lead witnesses
who have a very strong memorial image of the
offender (and hence find it relatively easy to detect a
match or an absence of a match in a lineup) to endorse
items suggesting the occurrence of popout regardless
of the actual characteristics of their search or decision
processes.
Moreover, the view that reports of popout most
likely imply an accurate identification is challenged
by the finding that witnesses who misidentified a very
similar looking but innocent foil from a simultaneous
lineup were as likely to report popout as witnesses
who accurately identified the perpetrator. This again
points to the unreliability of subjective reports of the
decision process as indicators of identification accu-
racy. Moreover, researchers have also shown that wit-
nesses may be more likely to endorse the statement
that the perpetrators’ face “popped out” at them and
that they “just recognized him, I don’t know why”
if they had been told that they picked the suspect from
the lineup (when the perpetrator was in fact not pres-
ent in the lineup), even though such feedback follow-
ing the identification cannot have affected the actual600 ———Popout Effect in Eyewitness IdentificationP-Cutler (Encyc)-45463.qxd 11/18/2007 12:43 PM Page 600