Abstract
The current study investigated whether small differences in the background colours between the lineup members would influence identification accuracy of own-race and other-race faces. Using the well-established 1-in-10 paradigm, half of the array faces had exactly the same backgrounds, and half were on backgrounds of slightly different hues of green. For target present arrays, participants were more accurate at identifying own-race faces when compared with the other-race faces when all backgrounds were the same. However, when backgrounds had slightly different hues, there was no difference in how accurate people were at identifying faces from both races. For target absent arrays, participants were more likely to incorrectly choose a face if the backgrounds were not all the same, regardless of the race of faces. Real-world implications from these findings are that using lineups where the backgrounds are slightly different hues may increase the likelihood of the false identification of innocent suspects.
Highlights
Identification parades are one of the most common means of identifying a perpetrator of a crime and can be powerful evidence in securing convictions in criminal cases
While the presence of variation in background colour seems not to affect identification performance when a target is present, false positive (FP) are reduced in target absent (TA) arrays when background colour is held constant; that is, witnesses are more likely to incorrectly identify an innocent face from a lineup when background variations, no greater than those found in commercial lineup databases, are present
Future research could use different samples with different ethnicities to investigate whether the own-race bias (ORB) and the use of different backgrounds generalises to different populations
Summary
Identification parades are one of the most common means of identifying a perpetrator of a crime and can be powerful evidence in securing convictions in criminal cases. Evidence is notoriously error prone, with organisations such as the Innocent Project finding that 75% of wrongful convictions that were later exonerated had verdicts based on faulty eyewitness evidence, resulting in mistaken identity (https://www.innocenceproject.org/). Considerable eyewitness research has investigated how to ensure lineups are not biased and to reduce false identifications of innocent suspects. Investigations have included the use of unbiased instructions ‘the person may or may not be there’ (Malpass & Devine, 1981; Steblay, 1997), the sequential presentation of lineups, presenting each lineup member individually rather than simultaneously (Lindsay et al, 1991; Steblay, Dysart, Fulero, & Lindsay, 2001; Wells, Steblay, & Dysart, 2015) and double blind administration, where the administer does know not the identity of the suspect (Greathouse & Kovera, 2009; Phillips, McAuliff, Kovera, & Cutler, 1999). Fewer studies have investigated whether inconsistencies in the images used in the lineup can influence identification accuracy
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