Using objective measures to examine the effect of suspect-filler similarity on eyewitness identification performance.

ABSTRACT: When selecting fillers to include in a police lineup, one must consider the level of similarity between the suspect and potential fillers. In order to reduce misidentifications, an innocent suspect should not stand out. Therefore, it is important that the fillers share some degree of similarity. Importantly, increasing suspect-filler similarity too much will render the task too difficult reducing correct identifications of a guilty suspect. Determining how much similarity yields optimal identification performance is the focus of the proposed study. Extant research on lineup construction has provided somewhat mixed results. In part, this is likely due to the subjective nature of similarity, which forces researchers to define similarity in relative terms. In the current study, we manipulate

SUBMITTER: McKinley GL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10628061 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature