Objectives
One of the legal safeguards designed to educate jurors about eyewitness evidence is judicial instructions. However, their effectiveness in sensitizing jurors to eyewitness accuracy and ...suggestive identification procedures captured on video is unknown.
Methods
Participants (
N
= 232) watched the video-recorded identification and testimony of one of 16 genuine eyewitnesses. We varied the suggestiveness of the identification procedure, whether they saw an accurate or inaccurate identification, and whether or not they received Victorian judicial instructions about eyewitness evidence.
Results
Participants were sensitive to eyewitness accuracy when identification procedures were non-suggestive, with participants more likely to believe accurate eyewitnesses than inaccurate eyewitnesses. This sensitivity to identification accuracy was impaired when participants saw an identification made under suggestive circumstances. Judicial instructions did not significantly affect participants’ judgments with one exception: when they led to confusion. Participants who saw an identification obtained under suggestive circumstances were more willing to believe the eyewitness when they read the judicial instructions compared to those in the control condition.
Conclusions
Suggestive identification procedures impaired participants’ sensitivity to eyewitness accuracy. The Victorian judicial instructions did not improve participants’ sensitivity. This is the first test of judicial instructions that used Bayesian analyses to establish the absence of an effect. Thus, judicial instructions might not improve sensitivity to eyewitness accuracy or be an effective remedy for the damaging effects of suggestive identification procedures.
The way in which individuals think about their own cognitive processes plays an important role in various domains. When eyewitnesses assess their confidence in identification decisions, they could be ...influenced by how easily relevant information comes to mind. This ease-of-retrieval effect has a robust influence on people's cognitions in a variety of contexts (e.g., attitudes), but it has not yet been applied to eyewitness decisions. In three studies, we explored whether the ease with which eyewitnesses recall certain memorial information influenced their identification confidence assessments and related testimony-relevant judgements (e.g., perceived quality of view). We manipulated the number of reasons participants gave to justify their identification (Study 1; N = 343), and also the number of instances they provided of a weak or strong memory (Studies 2a & 2b; Ns = 350 & 312, respectively). Across the three studies, ease-of-retrieval did not affect eyewitnesses' confidence or other testimony-relevant judgements. We then tried - and failed - to replicate Schwarz, N., Bless, H., Strack, F., Klumpp, G., Rittenauer-Schatka, H., & Simons, A. (1991. Ease of retrieval as information: Another look at the availability heuristic. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61(2), 195-202. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.61.2.195) original ease-of-retrieval finding (Study 3; N = 661). In three of the four studies, ease-of-retrieval had the expected effect on participants' perceived task difficulty; however, frequentist and Bayesian testing showed no evidence for an effect on confidence or assertiveness ratings.
Background
Understanding students’ naive conceptions about the norms that guide scientific best practice is important so that teachers can adapt to students’ existing understandings.
Objective
We ...examined what incoming undergraduate students of psychology believe about reproducibility and open science practices.
Method
We conducted an online survey with participants who were about to start their first course in psychology at a university (N = 239).
Results
When asked to indicate how a researcher should conduct her study, most students endorsed several open science practices. When asked to estimate the proportion of published psychological studies that follow various open science practices, participants’ estimates averaged near 50%. Only 18% of participants reported that they had heard the term “replication crisis.”
Conclusion
Despite media attention about the replication crisis, few incoming psychology students in our sample were familiar with the term. The students were nevertheless in favour of most open science practices, although they overestimated the prevalence of some of these practices in psychology.
Teaching Implications
Teachers of incoming psychology students should not assume pre-existing knowledge about open science or replicability.
Eyewitness identification was the principal evidence in DPP v Bayley (2015), wherein Adrian Bayley was convicted of raping and assaulting a woman in 2000. Twelve years after the attack, the victim ...identified Bayley from a photograph on Facebook and later in a formal police identification procedure. At the time of the initial Facebook identification, the victim knew about Bayley's involvement in Gillian Meagher's case. Bayley successfully appealed his conviction in 2016. The court of appeal held that the identification evidence had multiple weaknesses and should not have been permitted at the initial trial. In their decision, the court relied on legal precedents to support their judgement. This article reviews the empirical evidence regarding each of the issues raised by the court and how the stressfulness of an event can influence the reliability of an identification, and speculates about why the jury rendered a guilty verdict based on weak identification evidence.
Objective: Prior research indicates disguise negatively affects lineup identifications but the mechanisms by which disguise works have not been explored and different disguises have not been ...compared. We investigated how two different types of disguise, four levels of varying degrees of coverage, and lineup type influence eyewitnesses' identification decisions, accuracy, and confidence. Hypotheses: We predicted that identification accuracy would decrease as the disguise covered more of a perpetrator's face. We also predicted that type of disguise-stocking mask versus sunglasses and/or toque (i.e., knitted hat)-would influence identifications, but we had conflicting predictions about which disguise would impair their performance more. Method: In two experiments (Ns = 87 and 91) we manipulated degree of coverage by two different types of disguise: a stocking mask or sunglasses and toque. Participants viewed mock-crime videos followed by simultaneous or sequential lineups. Results and Conclusions: Disguise and lineup type did not interact. In support of the view that disguise prevents encoding, identification accuracy generally decreased with degree of disguise. For the stocking disguise, however, full and 2/3 coverage led to approximately the same rate of correct identifications-which suggests that disrupting encoding of specific features may be as detrimental as disrupting a whole face. Accuracy was most affected by sunglasses and we discuss the role meta-cognitions may have played. Lineup selections decreased more slowly than accuracy as coverage by disguise increased, indicating witnesses are insensitive to the effect of encoding conditions on accuracy.
Public Significance Statement
In two experiments we tested how differing types and degrees of disguise influence eyewitness lineup decisions and confidence. When perpetrators were disguised (versus not disguised), identifications of guilty suspects and rejections of lineups containing innocent suspects decreased. Generally, these effects were stronger when more of the perpetrator's face was covered but we also note that (1) sunglasses had a greater effect than a hat and (2) a stocking obscuring two-thirds of a perpetrator's face was as effective as one obscuring a perpetrator's entire face. Also, eyewitnesses may not fully appreciate how much a disguise influences their accuracy: choosing from lineups decreased more slowly than accuracy as degree of disguise increased. The effects of disguise on identification accuracy and confidence were similar across simultaneous and sequential lineups. Our results provide the criminal justice system, notably the courts, with a nuanced understanding of how different disguises may affect eyewitness accuracy and confidence.
Objectives
Fear of crime may develop in response to crime specifically (the narrow pathway) or may be a projection of broader threats (the broad pathway). New approaches are needed to examine how ...crime and threat, independently and in combination, influence people’s fear. To address this need, we created, evaluated, and validated an image set that varied across the dimensions of threat and crime.
Method
We used a 2 (Threat: high vs. low) × 2 (Crime: high vs. low) within-subjects factorial design. In three studies, participants (
N
= 24, 29, and 176, respectively) gave threat, crime, and fear ratings towards images. Participants also completed two traditional fear of crime measures and a measure of anxiety. Two evaluation studies explored the suitability of 178 images to produce a final set of 80 images (20 in each of the four categories). We validated this final set of 80 images in a third study.
Results
The validated Crime and Threat Image Set (CaTIS) contains 78 images across four categories: threat-and-crime (high-crime, high-threat), threat-only (low-crime, high-threat), crime-only (high-crime, low-threat), and neutral (low-crime, low-threat). There were significant main effects of threat and crime, and an interaction between Threat × Crime, on participants’ fear ratings. Participants’ own ratings of threat—but not crime—had a strong relationship with their fear ratings.
Conclusions
Threat had a stronger influence on participants’ fear ratings than crime. Thus, what is typically referred to as fear of crime may reflect broader fear. Further research with the CaTIS could explore the expression of this fear.
Triers of fact sometimes consider lineup fairness when determining the suggestiveness of an identification procedure. Likewise, researchers often consider lineup fairness when comparing results ...across studies. Despite their importance, lineup fairness measures have received scant empirical attention and researchers inconsistently conduct and report mock-witness tasks and lineup fairness measures. We conducted a large-scale, online experiment (N = 1,010) to examine how lineup fairness measures varied with mock-witness task methodologies as well as to explore the validity and reliability of the measures. In comparison to descriptions compiled from multiple witnesses, when individual descriptions were presented in the mock-witness task, lineup fairness measures indicated a higher number of plausible lineup members but more bias toward the suspect. Target-absent lineups were consistently estimated to be fairer than target-present lineups-which is problematic because it suggests that lineups containing innocent suspects are less likely to be challenged in court than lineups containing guilty suspects. Correlations within lineup size measures and within some lineup bias measures indicated convergent validity and the correlations across the lineup size and lineup bias measures demonstrated discriminant validity. The reliability of lineup fairness measures across different descriptions was low and reliability across different sets of mock witnesses was moderate to high, depending on the measure. Researchers reporting lineup fairness measures should specify the type of description presented, the amount of detail in the description, and whether the mock witnesses viewed target-present and/or -absent lineups.
Objectives
In response to calls for physiological measurement of people's fear of crime, we explored how men and women responded to self-report and physiological measures as they viewed threatening ...and/or crime-related images.
Method
We used a gender (men vs. women) × threat (high vs. low) × crime (high vs. low) mixed-factorial design. Participants (
N
= 40) viewed two blocks of 40 images from the Crime and Threat Image Set (CaTIS). In one block, participants rated their pleasantness and arousal (self-report) as they viewed the images. In the second block, we recorded participants’ eye blinks and galvanic skin response (GSR; physiological) as they viewed the images. Participants also completed two traditional fear of crime measures.
Results
On the traditional fear of crime measures, women reported significantly more fear of crime than men. When viewing images, there was a gender dynamic for self-reports of pleasantness: women reported feeling more unpleasant when viewing high-threat images than did men. Ratings of arousal, eye blink rates and GSR did not significantly differ between men and women, but GSR and arousal ratings did significantly differ across image categories.
Conclusions
We found gender differences between traditional fear of crime measures and self-reports of pleasantness, but no statistically significant differences in men’s and women’s physiological reactions. We propose that this is not a function of impression management, but that men and women may be interpreting their physiological responses in line with gender-socialised scripts.
In this article, we provide a toolbox of recommendations and resources for those aspiring to promote the uptake of open scientific practices. Open Science encompasses a range of behaviours that aim ...to improve the transparency of scientific research. This paper is divided into seven sections, each devoted to different groups or institutions in the research ecosystem: colleagues, students, departments and faculties, universities, academic libraries, journals, and funders. We describe the behavioural influences and incentives for each of these stakeholders as well as changes they can make to foster Open Science. Our primary goal, however, is to suggest actions that researchers can take to promote these behaviours, inspired by simple principles of behaviour change: make it easy, social, and attractive. In isolation, a small shift in one person’s behaviour may appear to make little difference, but when combined, many shifts can radically alter shared norms and culture. We offer this toolbox to assist individuals and institutions in cultivating a more open research culture.
Background: From January 2002 to May 2004, 28 puffer fish poisoning (PFP) cases in Florida, New Jersey, Virginia, and New York were linked to the Indian River Lagoon (IRL) in Florida. Saxitoxins ...(STXs) of unknown source were first identified in fillet remnants from a New Jersey PFP case in 2002. Methods: We used the standard mouse bioassay (MBA), receptor binding assay (RBA), mouse neuroblastoma cytotoxicity assay (MNCA), Ridascreen ELISA, MIST Alert assay, HPLC, and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) to determine the presence of STX, decarbamoyl STX (dc-STX), and N-sulfocarbamoyl (B1) toxin in puffer fish tissues, clonal cultures, and natural bloom samples of Pyrodinium bahamense from the IRL. Results: We found STXs in 516 IRL southern (Sphoeroides nephelus), checkered (Sphoeroides testudineus), and bandtail (Sphoeroides spengleri) puffer fish. During 36 months of monitoring, we detected STXs in skin, muscle, and viscera, with concentrations up to 22,104 ug STX equivalents (eq)/100 g tissue (action level, 80 µg STX eq/100 g tissue) in ovaries. Puffer fish tissues, clonal cultures, and natural bloom samples of P. bahamense from the IRL tested toxic in the MBA, RBA, MNCA, Ridascreen ELISA, and MIST Alert assay and positive for STX, dc-STX, and B1 toxin by HPLC and LC-MS. Skin mucus of IRL southern puffer fish captive for 1-year was highly toxic compared to Florida Gulf coast puffer fish. Therefore, we confirm puffer fish to be a hazardous reservoir of STXs in Florida's marine waters and implicate the dinoflagellate P. bahamense as the putative toxin source. Conclusions: Associated with fatal paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) in the Pacific but not known to be toxic in the western Atlantic, P. bahamense is an emerging public health threat. We propose characterizing this food poisoning syndrome as saxitoxin puffer fish poisoning (SPFP) to distinguish it from PFP, which is traditionally associated with tetrodotoxin, and from PSP caused by STXs in shellfish.
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