Abstract
Although canine identification of body odor (BO) has been widely used as forensic evidence, the concept of nosewitness identification by human observers was only recently put to the test. The results indicated that BOs associated with male characters in authentic crime videos could later be identified in BO lineup tests well above chance. To further evaluate nosewitness memory, we assessed the effects of lineup size (Experiment 1) and retention interval (Experiment 2), using a forced-choice memory test. The results showed that nosewitness identification works for all lineup sizes (3, 5, and 8 BOs), but that larger lineups compromise identification performance in similarity to observations from eye- and earwitness studies. Also in line with previous eye- and earwitness studies, but in disagreement with some studies on odor memory, Experiment 2 showed significant forgetting between shorter retention intervals (15 min) and longer retention intervals (1-week) using lineups of five BOs. Altogether this study shows that identification of BO in a forensic setting is possible and has limits and characteristics in line with witness identification through other sensory modalities.
Highlights
Witnesses have an important role in criminal processes (e.g., Ashworth and Redmayne, 2010), especially in the absence of any other type of evidence (Odinot and Wolters, 2006)
The results indicated that body odor (BO) associated with male characters in authentic crime videos could later be identified in BO lineup tests well above chance, on par with reports on eyewitness identification
Nosewitness Experience The ratings of the crime videos clearly indicated that the crimes were experienced as highly vivid (M = 6.47, SD = 1.93; M = 6.49, SD = 1.47, for video #1 and #2, respectively), arousing (M = 6.17, SD = 1.81; M = 6.65, SD = 1.74, for video #1 and #2, respectively) and unpleasant (M = 2.14, SD = 1.53; M = 1.78, SD = 1.25, for video #1 and #2, respectively)
Summary
Witnesses have an important role in criminal processes (e.g., Ashworth and Redmayne, 2010), especially in the absence of any other type of evidence (Odinot and Wolters, 2006). Identification of culprit body odor (BO) has been used as evidence in court in many countries (e.g., Prada and Furton, 2008; Ensminger et al, 2010), these identifications have typically been made by dogs and not by humans (Stockham et al, 2004; Schoon, 2005). A number of studies have shown that the performance levels of dogs are typically in the range of 75–90% correct (Settle et al, 1994; Schoon, 1996; Marchal et al, 2016). One study so far has investigated human identification of BO in a forensic set up (Alho et al, 2015; see below)
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