Abstract
Mock witnesses sometimes report using criminal stereotypes to identify a face from a lineup, a tendency known as criminal face bias. Faces are perceived as criminal-looking if they appear angry. We tested whether matching the emotional appearance of the fillers to an angry suspect can reduce criminal face bias. In Study 1, mock witnesses (n = 226) viewed lineups in which the suspect had an angry, happy, or neutral expression, and we varied whether the fillers matched the expression. An additional group of participants (n = 59) rated the faces on criminal and emotional appearance. As predicted, mock witnesses tended to identify suspects who appeared angrier and more criminal-looking than the fillers. This tendency was reduced when the lineup fillers matched the emotional appearance of the suspect. Study 2 extended the results, testing whether the emotional appearance of the suspect and fillers affects recognition memory. Participants (n = 1,983) studied faces and took a lineup test in which the emotional appearance of the target and fillers was varied between subjects. Discrimination accuracy was enhanced when the fillers matched an angry target's emotional appearance. We conclude that lineup member emotional appearance plays a critical role in the psychology of lineup identification. The fillers should match an angry suspect's emotional appearance to improve lineup identification accuracy.
Highlights
Selecting fillers on emotional appearance improves lineup identification accuracy People have well-formed stereotypes about the physical traits of criminals
We verified that the suspects did not appear angrier or more criminal looking than the fillers: There was no correlation between the suspect identification rate and the appearance ratings for the matched lineups in which all of the members were making an angry or a happy display
We tested whether criminal face bias can be reduced by matching the fillers to the emotional expression of an angry suspect
Summary
Selecting fillers on emotional appearance improves lineup identification accuracy People have well-formed stereotypes about the physical traits of criminals. To illustrate, Wells and Bradfield (1999) found that mock witnesses identified the police suspect more often when asked, “Which is the accused?” compared to when they were asked to select the face in the lineup that matched the eyewitness’ description. Half of the mock witnesses received a description of the culprit and the other half did not Another group of people rated how criminal-looking each of the lineup faces appeared. We tested whether criminal face bias can be reduced by matching the fillers to the suspect on emotional appearance, and in particular, on anger. In Study 1, we examined mock witness identification rates across lineups in which the emotional appearance of the fillers relative to the “suspect” was varied.
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