The various aspects of lineup administration have
been researched extensively. For example, the instruc-
tions that are given before the administration of a
lineup can affect the likelihood of the witness choos-
ing from the lineup; this effect occurs independently
of whether or not the lineup contains the perpetrator.
Furthermore, it is recommended that the witness be
told that the perpetrator may not be present in the
lineup, which therefore encourages the witness not to
pick from a lineup that they feel does not contain the
culprit. Equally important in the lineup instruction
and administration are the fillers that accompany the
suspect. The fillers serve as a control for guessing, and
if chosen, the administrator will be aware that the eye-
witness has made a mistaken identification. It is
equally important that the fillers are also picked with
some consideration for the description of the suspect
given by the witness. To the extent that the fillers are
similar in appearance to the witness’s description of
the culprit, it is ensured that the witness’s subject
choice was not based solely on logical deduction. The
presentation of the lineup has also been researched.
The two most researched presentation types are the
simultaneous lineup, in which the witness views all
lineup members at once, and the sequential lineup, in
which only one lineup member is shown at a time.
Research has repeatedly demonstrated that sequential
lineup presentations produce fewer false identifica-
tions than simultaneous lineups when the culprit is not
actually present in the lineup. However, correct iden-
tification rates do not differ between the two lineup
presentation modes when the culprit is present in the
lineup. If at all possible, a double-blind lineup proce-
dure should always be used. The double-blind proce-
dure refers to a lineup in which the administrator does
not know the identity of the suspect. If the lineup
administer is unaware of the identity of the suspect,
then he or she cannot unwittingly relay information
about the identity of the suspect to the witness.
The improvement in identification accuracy gained
by these procedures, coupled with large numbers of
DNA exonerations in recent years, has led many states
to implement these reforms to ensure the fairest and
most unbiased lineup identification procedures. For
example, in New Jersey and North Carolina, police
departments and prosecutor offices are now required to
conduct sequential lineups. Similarly, Santa Ana,
California, and several counties in Minnesota have
opted for sequential lineups. In Clinton, Iowa, the
arresting officer is not permitted in the room during theidentification procedure. Many cities, such as New
York and Seattle, have started using computerized pro-
grams to present photo arrays. In Chicago, as well as
parts of Wisconsin and Minnesota, committees have
been developed for the purpose of investigating identi-
fication procedures to reduce false identifications.Evaluating Eyewitness Memory
In some sense, all estimator variables could be con-
sidered postdictors of eyewitness accuracy. Although
research has focused on eyewitness recall, testimony,
and identification, research on the postdictors has
almost exclusively been limited to eyewitness identi-
fication. One of the most widely studied postdictor
variables is eyewitness confidence. This is most likely
the case because jurors seem to find confident eyewit-
nesses extremely persuasive and believable. This per-
ception of confident eyewitnesses is understandable;
intuitively, it seems as though there should be a strong
positive relationship between witness confidence and
accuracy. This belief is underscored by the fact that
the court has suggested that jurors may employ wit-
ness confidence as an indicator of the accuracy of the
witness. Unfortunately, psychological research has
found unequivocally and repeatedly that the relation-
ship between confidence and eyewitness accuracy is,
at best, a weak one. Furthermore, this weak relation-
ship deteriorates as the time interval between the
event and the confidence statement increases. The rea-
son for the lack of relationship between confidence
and accuracy may be that witnesses often rely on mis-
leading information as the basis for their confidence
estimates. For example, it has been shown that confir-
matory feedback increases participants’ confidence in
their eyewitness identification. Simply telling a wit-
ness that they have chosen correctly increases the
witness’s confidence in the accuracy of his or her
identification relative to participants who are not
given any feedback. This confidence inflation is espe-
cially prominent when the participants are inaccurate.
Just as eyewitness confidence serves an important
function in the prosecution phase, eyewitness descrip-
tions of the perpetrator serve an extremely important
function in the investigation process. Investigators
may use the descriptions to locate the suspect. The
problem is that descriptions are generally incomplete
and nondescript, such as “White male, 5 feet 9 inches
to 6 feet, about 18 to 24 years old.” It should be noted
that while the descriptions are generally incomplete,Eyewitness Memory——— 297E-Cutler (Encyc)-45463.qxd 11/18/2007 12:42 PM Page 297