Post-identification Feedback Research Articles

To what extent does post-identification feedback translate into witness behaviour?

ABSTRACT When eyewitness receive feedback implying they have accurately identified the perpetrator from a lineup, it boosts their confidence and possibly distorts their memory. Most research investigating this “post-identification feedback effect” (PIF effect) suggests the feedback changes eyewitness’ retrospective memory of their actual experiences. But it remains unclear to what extent this feedback might change the eyewitness’s subsequent behaviour. Across four experiments, we addressed this issue. We investigated whether people who received confirming feedback were more likely to provide recorded or written statements as evidence for an ongoing trial. Across the four experiments, we replicated the basic PIF effect. But we found no consistent evidence that these same people were more willing to offer their experimental data nor to submit a statement about what they saw. We did find preliminary evidence that people who received confirming feedback submitted longer statements. Taken together, these findings have theoretical implications establishing boundary conditions on the influence of feedback. On the practical side, these findings suggest caution in extrapolating the influence of PIF beyond a relatively small set of retrospective reports, beliefs, and inclinations.

Cross-Examination Fails to Safeguard Against Feedback Effects on Eyewitness Testimony

The legal system relies heavily on eyewitness evidence to identify and prosecute criminal perpetrators, but wrongful convictions resulting from eyewitness misidentification have led many to conclude that eyewitness memory is unreliable. Advances in eyewitness identification research have produced a more nuanced understanding of eyewitness reliability, however. Whereas pristinely collected eyewitness identification evidence provides diagnostic information about a suspect’s guilt or innocence, numerous contaminants of eyewitness memory can undermine the reliability of eyewitness identification evidence. One such contaminant is confirming post-identification feedback—feedback given to or inferred by an eyewitness that communicates that their identification decision was correct. Confirming feedback is inevitable in real cases involving eyewitness identification and compromises the diagnostic value of eyewitness memory to such an extent that it undermines evaluators’ abilities to differentiate between accurate and mistaken eyewitnesses (Smalarz & Wells, 2014). The current research tested whether cross-examination, a fundamental legal safeguard for preventing wrongful conviction based on eyewitness misidentification, can help remedy the contaminating effects of feedback on eyewitness testimony. Evaluators (N = 128) viewed direct examination testimony or direct- and cross-examination testimony of accurate and mistaken eyewitnesses, some of whom had received confirming feedback following their identification. Although the majority of eyewitnesses admitted during cross-examination that some or all of their recollections may have been influenced by the feedback, viewing the cross-examination did not improve evaluators’ abilities to differentiate between accurate and mistaken eyewitness testimony. Cross-examination appears to be an insufficient safeguard for preventing wrongful convictions based on contaminated eyewitness evidence.

Misidentifying an innocent suspect can alter witness recollections of the perpetrator’s face

ABSTRACT Two experiments were conducted to examine whether misidentifying an innocent suspect with a unique feature (i.e. facial tattoo) would impact witnesses’ recollections of the culprit so that they would mistakenly describe the culprit as having that same feature, when in reality, he did not. In both experiments, participants viewed a video of a simulated carjacking in which the perpetrator’s face was visible from a close or far distance, and were then led to misidentify an innocent suspect from a suggestive culprit-absent photo-array. The innocent suspect either had a tattoo photoshopped onto his face, or, like the culprit, had no visible facial markings. After making the identification, half the participants received confirming post-identification feedback. Finally, participant-witnesses were asked to describe the culprit in their own words. In both experiments, over a third of the participant-witnesses in the tattoo condition mistakenly described the culprit as having had a tattoo on his face. In Experiment 2, remember/know judgements indicated that participant/witnesses in the tattoo condition were also more likely to report remembering that the culprit had a face tattoo, rather than simply knowing this to be true. Also, as predicted, in both experiments, confirming feedback significantly boosted erroneous reports of recalling the tattoo.

Eyewitness identifications of multiple culprits: Disconfirming feedback following one lineup decision impairs identification of another culprit.

Eyewitnesses to multiple-culprit crimes are often asked to try to identify the culprits from different lineups during a police investigation. In 2 experiments (N = 557), we show that disconfirming feedback after an identification attempt for 1 culprit can impair identification performance on a subsequent lineup for a different culprit. In each experiment, witnesses viewed a simulated, 2-culprit crime, followed by 2 police lineups: A culprit-absent lineup for 1 culprit and either a culprit-present or culprit-absent lineup for the second culprit. Following the first lineup, witnesses received disconfirming feedback or no feedback. For witnesses who correctly rejected the first lineup, disconfirming feedback impaired identification performance on the subsequent lineup. For witnesses who incorrectly chose someone from the first lineup, disconfirming feedback impaired subsequent performance when the feedback unambiguously implied poor ability to identify the culprit in the first identification test (Experiment 2) but not when it could have been interpreted as implying poor criterion setting (Experiment 1). Across both experiments, disconfirming feedback also reduced the difference in confidence between correct and incorrect identifications. These results add to evidence that postidentification feedback can affect subsequent identification performance by influencing witnesses’ beliefs about their ability to identify a culprit. Current policy recommendations state that postidentification feedback should be withheld from witnesses until confidence has been documented. These should be updated to recommend withholding feedback for longer if the witness may be asked to view additional lineups, and to ensure that lineup administrators are blind to the results of any previous lineups.

Do Multiple Doses of Feedback Have Cumulative Effects on Eyewitness Confidence?

We tested whether multiple doses of feedback have cumulative effects on eyewitness-identification confidence. In Experiment 1, participants made mistaken identifications and received or did not receive three forms of confirming feedback: (1) co-witness feedback; (2) vague feedback from the experimenter (“You’ve been a good witness”); and (3) inference-based feedback, in which eyewitnesses were led to infer that their identification was accurate. Co-witness feedback and inference-based feedback independently inflated eyewitness confidence, providing some evidence of cumulation. In Experiment 2, participants received or did not receive co-witness feedback and/or inference-based feedback following their mistaken lineup identifications. Two doses of feedback produced significantly higher confidence than did one dose of feedback, demonstrating significant cumulation. These findings suggest that multiple doses of subtle post-identification feedback can cumulate to have large distorting effects on later testimony.

Eyewitness confidence malleability: Misinformation as post-identification feedback.

Objective: Feedback from lineup administrators about identification accuracy significantly impacts witness confidence. In the current studies, we investigated the effect of post-identification feedback given 1-week after an initial, pristine lineup. We tested 2 kinds of feedback: typical feedback (i.e., about identification accuracy) and misinformation feedback. Misinformation feedback came in the form of suggestive questioning that falsely suggested the participant was either more or less confident in their initial identification than they actually reported. Hypotheses: We hypothesized both confirming misinformation and typical feedback would significantly inflate witness confidence relative to no feedback controls while disconfirming misinformation and typical feedback would deflate witness confidence relative to controls. Method: Across 2 studies, participants (N = 907), recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk, watched a mock crime video, made an identification, and reported their confidence under unbiased lineup conditions. One week later, they received either confirming or disconfirming misinformation or typical feedback. They then provided a retrospective confidence judgment. Results: Misinformation feedback caused significant confidence change. Participants given false feedback that they were more confident in their initial identification than they reported later recalled greater initial confidence. Even when pristine identification conditions were used, typical confirming feedback caused participants to later remember greater confidence than they initially reported at the time of the lineup. Even in the absence of any feedback, control participants showed significant confidence inflation over time. Conclusion: These results highlight the need for lineup administrators to both ask for and document verbatim witness confidence at the time of the initial identification. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Supplemental Material for Eyewitness Confidence Malleability: Misinformation as Post-Identification Feedback

Supplemental Material for Eyewitness Confidence Malleability: Misinformation as Post-Identification Feedback

Secondary Confessions as Post-identification Feedback: How Jailhouse Informant Testimony Can Alter Eyewitnesses’ Identification Decisions

Prior research has shown that primary confession evidence can alter eyewitnesses’ identifications and self-reported confidence. The present study investigated whether secondary confession evidence from a jailhouse informant could have the same effect. Participants (N = 368) watched a video of an armed robbery and made an identification decision from a photo lineup. Except for those in the no-feedback conditions, all participants then read that certain lineup members either confessed to the crime, denied involvement, or were implicated by a jailhouse informant. Jailhouse informant testimony implicating the identified lineup member led participants to have significantly higher confidence in their identification. In contrast, jailhouse informant testimony that implicated a lineup member other than the identified led participants to have significantly lower confidence in their initial identification, and 80% of these witnesses changed their identification. These results indicate that jailhouse informant testimony can influence eyewitnesses’ confidence and their identification decisions.

Postidentification feedback distorts eyewitness memory: A review on current knowledge and future directions

Postidentification feedback distorts eyewitness memory: A review on current knowledge and future directions

The Effect of Post-ID Feedback on Retrospective Self-Reports in Showups

This study examined the effects of post-identification feedback on witness retrospective self-reports in showups and lineups, and importantly, focused on guilty and innocent suspect identifications. After viewing a mock crime video, participants were asked to identify the suspect from either a target-present or target-absent photo lineup or showup. Participants were randomly assigned to receive confirming feedback (“Great job, you made the correct decision”) or no feedback about their identification, before self-reporting confidence, view, attention, willingness to testify, and trust of a witness with a similar view. We replicated the typical finding that confirming feedback inflated witness self-reports and resulted in a larger proportion of witnesses meeting the credibility threshold necessary to testify. Importantly, we also found that showups had significantly higher self-reports than lineups, despite the equal discriminability achieved in this study between these two procedures. These data provide yet another reason for the police to restrict use of showups.

When Snitches Corroborate: Effects of Post-identification Feedback from a Potentially Compromised Source

Feedback provided to eyewitnesses can influence memory as to how confident their previous line-up selections were. Witnesses given confirming feedback remember being more confident than witnesses who are told their selection was incorrect regardless of their accuracy. This can have a powerful impact on judges and juries. In this article, we examine the effect of feedback from a ‘snitch’ (a jailhouse informant). This manipulation often occurs in real cases, despite that fact that snitches could have something to gain from providing information to police. Our participants witnessed a staged crime and then identified the perpetrator from a target-absent line-up. Two days later, participants were provided with feedback and were probed for confidence. Results show that confirming feedback from a snitch has the same effect as a confession made by the actual suspect, and disconfirming feedback reduces confidence. Implications and relation to the extant literature on eyewitness confidence are discussed.

The eyewitness post identification feedback effect 15 years later: Theoretical and policy implications.

Eyewitnesses' retrospective reports of certainty, view, attention, and other judgments constitute central variables used by courts to assess the credibility of eyewitness identification evidence. Recently, important state Supreme Court decisions (e.g., New Jersey v. Henderson, 2011; Oregon v. Lawson, 2012) have relied on psychological research regarding the post-identification feedback effect to revamp their assumptions about when witness retrospective self-reports can be trusted. The post-identification feedback effect, originally demonstrated by Wells and Bradfield (1998), refers to the way in which witness self-reports are distorted by feedback to the witnesses that suggests that their identifications were accurate or mistaken. We present a meta-analysis of the post-identification effect involving 7,000 participants from the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia. The results show that confirming feedback robustly inflates eyewitnesses' retrospective judgments across experimental manipulations and laboratory settings with large effect sizes. We describe the policy implications of the feedback effect with regard to the need for double-blind lineup procedures. Moreover, we propose that testimony-relevant witness judgments should be collected and documented, preferably with videotape, before feedback can occur. We use moderator analyses to examine the current explanation of the feedback effect and delineate new research questions that could help develop a more complete theoretical understanding of the processes giving rise to the effect.

Confirming feedback following a mistaken identification impairs memory for the culprit.

This research examined whether confirming postidentification feedback following a mistaken identification impairs eyewitness memory for the original culprit. We also examined whether the degree of similarity between a mistakenly identified individual and the actual culprit plays a role in memory impairment. Participant-witnesses (N = 145) made mistaken identifications from a "similar" or a "dissimilar" culprit-absent photo lineup. The similar lineup contained individuals who were similar in appearance to the actual culprit and the dissimilar lineup contained individuals who were dissimilar in appearance to the actual culprit. After their identifications, witnesses were given confirming feedback ("Good job! You identified the suspect.") or no feedback. The experimenter then feigned having accidentally given the witnesses the wrong photo lineup. After telling witnesses to disregard whatever they saw in the first lineup, the experimenter gave witnesses the "correct" (culprit-present) lineup and told the witnesses to do their best to identify the culprit. Identifying a dissimilar individual and receiving confirming feedback after a misidentification had independent impairing effects on memory for the original culprit. Results extend the traditional conceptualization of the postidentification feedback effect by showing that confirming feedback not only distorts witnesses' retrospective self-reports, but it also impairs recognition memory for the culprit.

Post-identification feedback to eyewitnesses impairs evaluators’ abilities to discriminate between accurate and mistaken testimony.

Giving confirming feedback to mistaken eyewitnesses has robust distorting effects on their retrospective judgments (e.g., how certain they were, their view, etc.). Does feedback harm evaluators' abilities to discriminate between accurate and mistaken identification testimony? Participant-witnesses to a simulated crime made accurate or mistaken identifications from a lineup and then received confirming feedback or no feedback. Each then gave videotaped testimony about their identification, and a new sample of participant-evaluators judged the accuracy and credibility of the testimonies. Among witnesses who were not given feedback, evaluators were significantly more likely to believe the testimony of accurate eyewitnesses than they were to believe the testimony of mistaken eyewitnesses, indicating significant discrimination. Among witnesses who were given confirming feedback, however, evaluators believed accurate and mistaken witnesses at nearly identical rates, indicating no ability to discriminate. Moreover, there was no evidence of overbelief in the absence of feedback whereas there was significant overbelief in the confirming feedback conditions. Results demonstrate that a simple comment following a witness' identification decision ("Good job, you got the suspect") can undermine fact-finders' abilities to discern whether the witness made an accurate or a mistaken identification.

The effect of post-identification feedback, delay, and suspicion on accurate eyewitnesses.

We examined whether post-identification feedback and suspicion affect accurate eyewitnesses. Participants viewed a video event and then made a lineup decision from a target-present photo lineup. Regardless of accuracy, the experimenter either, informed participants that they made a correct lineup decision or gave no information regarding their lineup decision. Immediately following the lineup decision or after a 1-week delay, a second experimenter gave some of the participants who received confirming feedback reason to be suspicious of the confirming feedback. Following immediately after the confirming feedback, accurate witnesses did not demonstrate certainty inflation. However, after a delay accurate witnesses did demonstrate certainty inflation typically associated with confirming feedback. The suspicion manipulation only affected participants' certainty when the confirming feedback created certainty inflation. The results lend support to the accessibility interpretation of the post-identification feedback effect and the erasure interpretation of the suspicion effect.

Blind lineup administration as a prophylactic against the postidentification feedback effect.

Confidence and other testimony-relevant judgments may be distorted when witnesses are given confirming postidentification feedback, and double-blind procedures-wherein the lineup administrator does not know the identity of the suspect-are a commonly proposed, but untested, remedy for this effect. In the current study, mock witnesses viewed a staged crime video followed by a target-present or target-absent lineup where the administrator was or was not presumed to know the identity of the suspect. After making an identification decision, witnesses were or were not given realistic, but nonidentification-specific, feedback, and then confidence and other judgments were assessed. A significant interaction was found between blind condition and feedback such that feedback inflated confidence and other judgments in presumed nonblind conditions only; feedback had no effect on participants in presumed blind conditions. As predicted by the selective cue integration framework-a theoretical model suggested to explain the interaction between presumed blind administration and feedback-this interaction was significant only for inaccurate participants. These results suggest that blind administration may serve as a prophylactic against the negative effects of postidentification feedback. In addition, the effectiveness of our subtle feedback in influencing judgments suggests that lineup administrators should take care not to provide any feedback to eyewitnesses.

The effect of post-identification feedback, delay, and suspicion on accurate eyewitnesses.

The effect of post-identification feedback, delay, and suspicion on accurate eyewitnesses.

The selective cue integration framework: A theory of postidentification witness confidence assessment.

The current manuscript proposes a theory of how witnesses assess their confidence following a lineup identification, called the selective cue integration framework (SCIF). Drawing from past research on the postidentification feedback effect, the SCIF details a three-stage process of confidence assessment that is based largely on a conceptualization of feedback-produced confidence inflation as an attitude change phenomenon. According to the SCIF, when asked to assess their confidence, witnesses assess the strength of their internal accuracy cues (assessment stage). If weak, witnesses look specifically for external accuracy cues that can justify their identification decision (search stage). Finally, these justifying external cues are submitted to a credibility check (evaluation stage); if no credibility-undermining information is uncovered, they become integrated into one's confidence assessment. Three studies used college students as mock-witnesses to test predictions derived from the SCIF. In study 1a, lineup identification confidence was unaffected by disconfirming feedback unless that statement recanted previously administered confirming feedback, suggesting the existence of different stages in the confidence assessment process. Study 1b demonstrated that the effects of recanted feedback depend only on a discrediting of the feedback itself, and not on the discrediting of the identification. Study 2 demonstrated the generality of the SCIF by showing its predictive ability within a novel and methodologically improved postidentification cowitness feedback paradigm. Results across all three studies supported the SCIF as a theoretical framework for witness confidence assessment, suggest a new means of eliminating the feedback effect, and unite postidentification feedback and cowitness phenomena under a common theoretical umbrella.

Does post-identification feedback affect evaluations of eyewitness testimony and identification procedures?

Two experiments were conducted to test whether post-identification feedback affects evaluations of eyewitnesses. In Experiment 1 (N = 156), evaluators viewed eyewitness testimony. They evaluated witnesses who received confirming post-identification feedback as more accurate and more confident, among other judgments, compared with witnesses who received disconfirming post-identification feedback or no feedback. This pattern persisted regardless of whether the witness's confidence statement was included in the testimony. In Experiment 2 (N = 161), witness evaluators viewed the actual identification procedure in which feedback was delivered. Instructions to disregard the feedback were manipulated. Again, witnesses who received confirming feedback were assessed more positively. This pattern occurred even when witness evaluators received instructions to disregard the feedback. These experiments are the first to confirm researchers' assumptions that feedback effects on witnesses translate to changes in judgments of those witnesses.

Postidentification feedback affects subsequent eyewitness identification performance.

Eyewitnesses sometimes view more than one lineup during an investigation. We investigated the effects of postidentification feedback following one lineup on responses to a second lineup. Witnesses (N=621) viewed a mock crime and, later, attempted to identify the culprit from an initial (target-absent) lineup and a second (target-present or target-absent) lineup. Prior to viewing the second lineup, some witnesses received accurate feedback stating that the initial lineup did not contain the culprit. A compound-decision, signal detection approach allowed the effects of feedback on identification responses to be described in terms of differences in discriminability and response bias. For witnesses who made an incorrect foil identification from the initial lineup, feedback (vs. no feedback) was associated with poorer discriminability on the second test. For witnesses who correctly rejected the initial lineup, feedback (vs. no feedback) was associated with greater discriminability on the second test. Only witnesses who received feedback after an initial correct rejection performed at a level comparable with a single-lineup control group, suggesting that an initial identification test can impair, but not enhance, performance on a second test involving the same culprit. From a theoretical perspective, the results are consistent with the idea that the way people use memorial information when making memory decisions is flexible. Analyses of preidentification confidence ratings, obtained in a follow-up study (N=133), suggested that the effects of feedback on identification performance may have operated via differences in witnesses' metacognitive beliefs.