Selecting Lineup Foils in Eyewitness Identification Experiments: Experimental Control and Real-World Simulation

• NCJ Number: 190146
• Journal: Law and Human Behavior Volume: 25 Issue: 3 Dated: June 2001 Pages: 199-216
• Author(s): Steven E. Clark; Jennifer L. Tunnicliff
• Date Published: 2001
• Length: 18 pages
• Grant Number(s): SES9709620
• Sponsoring Agency: National Science Foundation
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study tested various hypotheses related to the selection of "foils" (persons who are not suspects in the crime at issue) for a lineup and the impact of the selection method on the eyewitness's decision regarding the presence of the true perpetrator in the lineup.

Abstract

A total of 187 participants were recruited through various courses at the University of California, Riverside. Participants viewed a staged crime presented on videotape. Following presentation of the video, each witness was shown a lineup constructed according to one of three conditions. A "per-present" lineup consisted of a photograph of the perpetrator and five foil photographs selected based on their similarity to the perpetrator. A "perp-absent-suspect matched" lineup consisted of an innocent suspect and five foils selected based on their similarity to the innocent suspect. A "perp-absent-perp-matched" lineup consisted of an innocent suspect and the five foils that had been selected for the perp-present lineup. The selection of foils for the "perp-present" and "perp-absent-suspect-matched" lineups was performed by officers from the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, who were blind to the experimental conditions. The "perp-absent-perp-matched" lineup was created by substituting the innocent suspect into the "perp-present" lineup. Each witness's identification response was classified as one of the following: identification of the suspect, identification of a foil, don't know, or perpetrator not there. A series of chi-square analyses were conducted. Based on analyses by Navon (1992) and Wogalter et al. (1992), the researchers predicted that the conditional probability of false identification, given that the witness made any pick, would be greater than chance (.167) for the "perp-absent-suspect-matched" lineups, and less than chance for the "perp-absent-perp-matched" lineups. In the latter case, the matching of foils to the perpetrator would be based on verbal descriptions given by the eyewitnesses. This hypothesis was confirmed by study findings. These findings added weight to recommendations that foils should be selected based on their match to the eyewitness's description of the perpetrator rather than to the suspect. 4 tables and 43 references