The Confidence-Accuracy and Decision Latency-Accuracy Relationships in Children's Eyewitness Identification

Abstract

This study examined the eyewitness confidence-accuracy and decision latency-accuracy relations in a sample of children (N = 240) and a control group of adolescents (N = 159). Participants witnessed a video of a simulated crime and later attempted an identification from an eight-person photospread line-up on a computer screen under target-present conditions. Both identification confidence and decision latency were measured. Although the confidence-accuracy correlations were similarly modest for both samples, the subjective certainty-accuracy relation clearly distinguished children from adolescents, with children displaying pronounced over-confidence. For the decision latency-accuracy relation, children were not distinguished from adolescents, although there was evidence that children's decisions were more impulsive. The results suggest that, in contrast with patterns emerging in research with adults, neither confidence nor decision latency has promise for distinguishing accurate from inaccurate identification responses in children.