different places (at the crime scene and the place where
they saw the familiar foil), recollecting the previous
encounter with the familiar foil only reinforces the
misidentification. Several studies have demonstrated
that unconscious transference effects can be eliminated
by preventing conscious inferencing. This can be done
by telling witnesses just prior to making a lineup iden-
tification that the familiar foil and the criminal are not
the same person, or by presenting a lineup that contains
the familiar foil and the criminal. These procedures
allow witnesses to distinguish between the familiar foil
and the criminal, to realize that they are not the same
person, and the result is often a correct, positive identi-
fication of the criminal.
The importance of conscious inferencing was also
seen in a study with children, where 11- to 12-year-olds
were found to be as susceptible as adults to uncon-
scious transference, whereas 5- to 10-year-olds did not
make the unconscious transference error. The study
reported that the older children engaged in conscious
inferencing and thought the familiar foil and the crimi-
nal were the same person seen in two different places.
The younger children did not exhibit conscious infer-
encing, nor did they make the unconscious transference
error. Therefore, the older children were susceptible to
making the unconscious transference error because
they had the cognitive ability to engage in conscious
inferencing. The younger children were not susceptible
to making the unconscious transference error because
they lacked the cognitive skill to engage in conscious
inferencing.
The discovery of the role of conscious inferencing
has affected how the concept of unconscious transfer-
ence is viewed. There does not appear to be support for
the traditional definition of unconscious transference
whereby a familiar foil is misidentified and the witness
has no “conscious” recollection of the previous expo-
sure to the foil. The misidentification of a familiar foil
appears to depend on the ability of the witness to recall
where the familiar foil was encountered, followed by an
error in inferential processing whereby the foil and the
criminal are thought to be the same person. Therefore,
recalling the context where the familiar foil was seen
appears to be a prerequisite for the misidentification.
This process results in the formation of what has been
referred to in the literature as a composite memory that
is formed by using old information that was previously
stored in memory (exposure to the foil) and new infor-
mation (exposure to the criminal). The composite mem-
ory can be thought of as two separate memories that are
held together by a contextual tag, which is the inferencethat the familiar foil and the criminal are the same per-
son. If the contextual tag is broken, then the unconscious
transference effect is eliminated. However, if the con-
textual tag is not broken and the witness misidentifies
the familiar foil, then the composite memory may
become solidified and very difficult to correct due to
commitment effects and the destructive updating of the
original memory for the crime. While the unconscious
transference concept has enjoyed widespread accep-
tance in the field, perhaps it is time to give the general
idea a more accurate title or description, such as
“misidentifying a familiar bystander effect,” given that
such errors are driven by the conscious recollection of a
previous exposure to the familiar foil.David F. Ross, Dorothy F. Marsil,
and Richard MetzgerSee alsoEstimator and System Variables in Eyewitness
Identification; Eyewitness Identification: Field Studies;
Eyewitness Memory; Identification Tests, Best Practices
in; Instructions to the Witness; Wrongful ConvictionFurther Readings
Deffenbacher, K., Bornstein, B, & Penrod, S. (2006).
Mugshot exposure effects: Retroactive interference,
mugshot commitment, source confusion, and unconscious
transference. Law and Human Behavior, 30,287–307.
Lindsay, R. C. L., Ross, D. F., Read, J. D., & Toglia, M. P.
(2007). The handbook of eyewitness psychology: Vol. 2.
Memory for events.Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Ross, D. F., Marsil, D. F., Rapus-Benton, T., Hoffman,
R., Warren, A. R., Lindsay, R. C. L., et al. (2006).
Children’s susceptibility to misidentifying a familiar
bystander from a lineup: When younger is better. Law
and Human Behavior, 30,249–257.UNIFORMCHILD CUSTODY
EVALUATIONSYSTEM (UCCES)
The Uniform Child Custody Evaluation System
(UCCES) provides a method of gathering and organiz-
ing information during child custody evaluations. It
proposes to standardize the process for evaluations as
a remedy for the unsystematic methods and procedures
that are frequently employed in these cases. Although
it offers a specific process for structuring data collec-
tion, it does not specify which psychological tests or822 ———Uniform Child Custody Evaluation System (UCCES)U-Cutler (Encyc)-45463.qxd 11/18/2007 12:44 PM Page 822