Accuracy, confidence, and juror perceptions in eyewitness identification.

Abstract

Subjects of both sexes individually witnessed the staged theft of a calculator. The 127 witnesses were then given the opportunity to identify the thief from a six-person picture array; from this sample, 24 accurate-iden tification witnesses and 18 inaccurate-id entification witnesses were cross-examined with either leading or nonleading questions. Jurors were unable to distinguish accurate from inaccurate witnesses across the 42 cross-examina tion sessions (d' = .02). However, jurors in the leading-questions conditions were significantly more likely to believe accurate than inaccurate witnesses (<f = .35), whereas the reverse effect held for nonleading questions (<f = — .39). Jurors' attributions of witness confidence were unrelated to witness accuracy, even though these attributions accounted for 50% of the variance in jurors' decisions to believe witnesses. The poor accuracy-confidence relationship among witnesses is discussed in relation to the research on probability calibration. Eyewitness identification of criminal suspects is heavily relied on in the criminal justice system. (See Woocher, 1977.) Yet, staged-crime research indicates that eyewitness identifications are often unreliable. Indeed, a recent study indicated that following a staged crime, 34% of the witnesses made no identification from a six-person photo spread, 31% made accurate identifications, and 35% made false identifications (Leippe, Wells, & Ostrom, 1978). Although it is not clear to what extent current research may be presenting an exaggerated picture of the unreliable eyewitness (see Wells, 1978), there is little doubt that the rate of false identifications (i.e., identifying an innocent lineup member) in staged crimes is unacceptably high. The current investigation was designed to more fully analyze the implications of false iden