Eyewitness Confidence from the Witnessed Event Through Trial

Abstract

It seems to be a matter of common sense that eyewitness confidence should be strongly related to eyewitness accuracy. People should be a good judge of what they know and what they don’t know. Indeed, surveys conducted over the past two decades have shown that laypeople (e.g., Brigham & Bothwell, 1983; Deffenbacher & Loftus, 1982; Yarmey & Jones, 1983) and even members of the legal profession (Brigham & WolfsKeil, 1983) believe that eyewitness confidence is a reliable indicator of eyewitness accuracy.