Joanna Pozzulo

Carleton University · Department of Psychology

This study examined mock-jurors’ perceptions of race and victim age in a sexual assault case. Undergraduate students (N = 440) read a mock-trial transcript of a case involving allegations of sexual assault. Victim age (10- vs. 40- vs. 70-years-old), victim race (White vs. Indigenous), and defendant race (White vs. Indigenous) were manipulated. The...

The purpose of the current studies was to examine whether delayed reporting and the number of inconsistent statements impacted mock jurors’ judgments in a sexual assault case (Study 1) and as a function of assault type (physical vs. sexual; Study 2). Undergraduates (N = 278 in Study 1; N = 571 in Study 2) read a mock trial transcript depicting the...

Little is known about how defendant and victim religion influence juror decision-making outcomes in cases of extreme violent crime. The current study sought to examine whether defendant age (16- vs. 35-years-old), and defendant and victim religion (Christian vs. Muslim) influenced mock-jurors’ perceptions and verdict decisions in a religiously moti...

We examined how a victim’s length of delayed reporting (2 months, 10 years, 20 years) and reason for delayed reporting (lack of evidence, fear of retaliation, not wanting family to know) influenced mock-jurors’ decision-making. Mock-jurors (N = 709) read a trial transcript of an alleged sexual assault involving a female victim and a male defendant....

The current study examined factors that may influence jurors’ judgments in a sexual harassment case. Mock jurors (N = 479) examined how a defendant’s gender and occupation, a victim’s gender, and whether the victim has produced similar accusations in the past influenced mock juror’s judgments. Participants read a case vignette describing an alleged...

Background: Community mental health is growing discipline in psychology that recognizes the importance of creating a community that fosters wellness. Although universities provide many individuals a sense of community, little research has examined how community mental health interventions can be implemented into a classroom setting. Purpose: This p...

There has been an increase in human trafficking in Canada from 2018 to 2019, which suggests a rising trend in human trafficking, and as such, the number of court cases are likely increasing. Because of this, the current study sought to examine how a defendant and victim's gender, and defendant social status and age impacted mock jurors' decision-ma...

Reports of sexual offences have increased in recent years, with many cases involving allegations against high-status individuals (e.g., Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby). In addition, many of these cases have involved allegations against the defendant from multiple victims, with long delays in reporting of the alleged assault. The purpose of this study...

The current study sought to examine whether defendant gender, victim gender, and type of abuse (emotional, physical) impacted mock jurors’ judgments when the abuse happened within a sports context. Participants (N = 239) read a mock case vignette describing the alleged abuse. They then were asked whether the case should proceed to trial, rate their...

Two studies examined the impact of disguise on recognizing familiar faces. Participants viewed the faces of male celebrities and unfamiliar male faces seen disguised or undisguised. Familiar face recognition accuracy decreased significantly with an increase in the degree of disguise and concealment of facial features. In study 1, participants in th...

The purpose of this study was to examine how a victim’s sexual orientation, gender, and gender identity influenced mock-juror decision-making in an aggravated sexual assault case. University students were recruited to take on the role as mock jurors (N = 375) and read a mock trial transcript depicting an alleged aggravated sexual assault and were a...

Adolescent eyewitnesses have not been adequately studied. This is problematic given that adolescents are at a heightened risk to be an eyewitness or victim to crime. As a first step in studying adolescent eyewitnesses, the current experiment examined adolescents’ (15- to 18-year-old’s; N = 470) performance on four lineup procedures—simultaneous, se...

The current studies examined whether the race and gender of a person under suspicion (Studies 1 and 2), as well as the race of the person who called the police (Study 2) influences perceptions of police conduct. Participants read a summary in which the police were called on individuals waiting in a coffee shop (Study 1; N = 133) or sleeping in thei...

Eyewitness testimony is a common form of evidence in criminal cases (Wells and Olson Annu Rev Psychol 54:277–295 2003); however, inconsistencies in eyewitness reports are frequent (Brewer and Wells Curr Dir Psychol Sci 20:24–27 2011). This research examined the influence of eyewitness consistency, in combination with relevant case factors, across t...

Since #MeToo, the reporting of sexual assault has become more common, especially allegations against powerful people. Many of these cases have involved several adult victims making allegations against one person, and victims who have delayed reporting. The purpose of the current study was to examine how these factors—age at victimization (21- vs. 3...

The current study examined the influence of testimonial aids (e.g., testifying behind a screen), in combination with victim-defendant familiarity, and victim age, on mock jurors’ judgments in a sexual offence case. The sample included undergraduate mock jurors (N = 256) who read a trial summary and answered questions regarding their perception of d...

Most eyewitness research focuses on stranger identifications, despite the fact that eyewitnesses may also be asked to identify a familiar person. The current study examined the role of eyewitness-perpetrator familiarity and line-up procedure on adolescent eyewitness identification accuracy. Familiarity was manipulated wherein participants (N = 623)...

The #MeToo movement has given voice to victims of sexual harassment and assault. In many of these cases, there have been long delays in reporting of the sexual offence (e.g., the Harvey Weinstein case). The purpose of this study was to examine how the type of sexual offence (harassment vs. assault) and the length of delayed reporting (15, 25, 35 ye...

Preschoolers' (4- to 7-year-olds) recall and correct rejection rates using the simultaneous, wildcard, elimination, and a new lineup; the elimination with wildcard were compared. The new lineup uses the traditional two judgement procedure inherent to the elimination lineup but modifies Judgement 2 by providing a wildcard rejection. Participants (N...

The current study examined factors that may influence jurors’ judgments in a criminal sexual harassment case with Canadian undergraduate students. Undergraduate students (n = 268) examined whether defendant’s gender, victim’s gender, and whether the victim had made similar accusations in the past were influential in mock jurors’ judgments. Particip...

The purpose of the present studies was to examine how officer characteristics influenced mock jurors’ judgments in a police use of force case. In study 1 (N = 356), we examined officer race, suspect race, and weapon type (gun vs. taser vs. assault gloves), and in study 2 (N = 352) we examined officer gender, weapon type, and whether the officer was...

Memory and Sexual Misconduct: Psychological Research for Criminal Justice investigates the veracity of memories of sexual misconduct and the factors that may influence accurate recall, and fundamentally assesses whether psychological science can help the criminal justice system in determining which accusations are likely to be accurate, and which a...

General Audience Summary When it comes to presenting a suspect to a witness for an identification attempt, it is better to first surround that suspect with high-similarity known-innocent persons (to use a “fair” lineup) than it is to present the suspect to the witness in isolation (to use a showup). The rationale is that if the suspect is innocent,...

This chapter discusses the familiarity construct, current definitions of familiarity in the field, as well as real-life cases in which the defendant was considered familiar to the eyewitness/victim. The current dictionary definition of familiarity is discussed in comparison to how people subjectively perceive familiarity. Differing definitions and...

This chapter examines the role of estimator variables within eyewitness memory. Estimator variables are factors that occur during the time of the crime that may affect eyewitness identification accuracy. Various estimator variables are discussed, in conjunction with familiarity, to highlight how eyewitness recall and identification may be impacted....

This chapter discusses familiarity from a cognitive psychological lens. For example, it examines cognitive theories of familiarity. It discusses the discrepancy-attribution hypothesis, heuristics, and valence and how each of these can lead to a sense of familiarity. The chapter also discusses face processing and face recognition. Typically, people...

This chapter discusses the role of an eyewitness, the importance of eyewitness testimony, and the different identification decisions that an eyewitness can make when the police have apprehended the guilty suspect or an innocent suspect of the crime in question. The chapter then discusses eyewitness recall of strangers, highlighting recent research...

This chapter discusses familiarity as a dependent variable, specifically focusing on memory errors that may occur when an eyewitness makes a familiarity judgment after witnessing a crime. The chapter highlights the link between familiarity memory errors and wrongful conviction. The chapter describes various factors within the justice system that ma...

This chapter provides a summary of the goals of the book and offers a look to the future in eyewitness familiarity research. The chapter addresses why there has been limited research examining familiarity within an eyewitness context. Next, it describes the current state of the field in terms of studying familiarity through four themes: (1) the lim...

This chapter discusses familiarity from a social psychological lens. The chapter provides a basis in theory for beginning to understand the concept of familiarity, how it may be studied, and factors that impact familiarity outside of an eyewitness-specific context. For example, it takes a social psychological perspective on how familiarity is devel...

Eyewitnesses are likely to have some degree of familiarity with a perpetrator when a crime is committed. Despite the fact that the majority of crimes are committed by someone with whom the victim/witness is familiar , the majority of eyewitness research has focused on the identification of stranger perpetrators. It is critical to examine how famili...

This chapter discusses system variables that are under the control of the criminal justice system and can be manipulated after the crime has occurred, such as the type of lineup procedure shown to the eyewitness. The chapter first discusses recall memory and the different interviewing protocols and how these may interact with familiarity to influen...

This chapter focuses on familiarity in the courtroom. Specifically, this chapter describes how familiarity between an eyewitness and a defendant affects juror decision-making in terms of perceptions of guilt and credibility of both the eyewitness and the defendant. The chapter describes how familiarity has been operationalized in the juror decision...

Eyewitnesses are likely to have some degree of familiarity with a perpetrator when a crime is committed. Despite the fact that the majority of crimes are committed by someone with whom the victim/witness is familiar, the majority of eyewitness research has focused on the identification of stranger perpetrators. It is critical to examine how familia...

When presenting a suspect to a witness for an identification attempt, fair lineups are superior to one-person showups. Relative to showups, fair lineups decrease innocent-suspect identifications to a greater extent than culprit identifications (Steblay et al., 2003). We examined whether the lineup advantage extends from facial identification to for...

The purpose of the current study was to examine whether juror gender, male-to-female or female-to-male abuse, eyewitness age (8, 12, and 16 years old), and type of intimate partner violence witnessed (physical, sexual, and emotional) influenced mock jurors' decision-making. Mock jurors ( N = 1,162) read a trial transcript where the child of a marri...

With the recent media attention on police discretion and police discrimination, the current studies aimed to address whether people believe the race and gender of a person under suspicion influences police conduct. In study 1, participants (N = 137) read an incident summary where two individuals, who were described as being Black or White and male...

This article examines “familiar identifications,” or identifications where an eyewitness explicitly states that she has seen the perpetrator before the crime. The first section of this article reviews the literature on familiar identification accuracy. Although these identifications can be of high accuracy they are far from infallible, particularly...

The majority of research examining factors that influence jurors where the sole evidence is eyewitness identification focuses on stranger identifications where the eyewitness has never encountered the perpetrator before. However, it also is important to understand how familiarity between the eyewitness and perpetrator may be influential as familiar...

Adolescents (15- to 17-years, N = 366) and adults (18- to 57-years, N = 345) were shown a videotaped theft and following a brief delay were presented with a target-present or target-absent simultaneous lineup that contained one of four variations of a “not here” graphical representation or a control with no graphical representation. Variations incl...

We examined whether eyewitness confidence, familiarity with the defendant (defined as number of prior exposures), and eyewitness age (Study 1 only) influenced mock jurors in a murder trial. Participants read a criminal mock trial transcript where the eyewitness reported seeing the defendant once or many times (vs. none) and answered questions relat...

The purpose of this study was to examine how defendant gender, victim gender, location of sexual assault (professor’s office vs. fraternity party), and whether the defendant was intoxicated influenced mock jurors’ decisions in a sexual assault case. Mock jurors (N = 503) read a mock trial transcript depicting an alleged sexual assault and were aske...

Lineup administrators may inadvertently bias an eyewitness’ identification; as such, the blind-lineup administration is recommended to combat this bias. Three studies examined eyewitness identification accuracy when the lineup is presented on a computer versus in-person to determine whether computer-administrated lineups could replace in-person lin...

The present studies examined jurors’ perceptions of “familiar” identifications—that is, identifications where an eyewitness espouses prior exposure to the perpetrator. In two studies, undergraduate mock jurors (total N = 760) read a criminal case vignette that manipulated whether the eyewitness claimed to have prior exposure to the perpetrator (and...

As an eyewitness to a crime, a child may be asked to provide descriptive information about the perpetrator and to make an identification from a lineup. Despite research examining children's ability to describe and identify single-perpetrator crimes, there is substantially less research that examines how children perform when acting as eyewitnesses...

Three studies examined the influence of an eyewitness’ prior relationship with the defendant in combination with identification delay (study 1; N = 281), defendant appearance change between the time of the crime and identification (study 2; N = 194), and type of descriptors reported (i.e., perpetrator or crime scene) and presence of descriptor erro...

Descriptive and identification abilities of adolescent and young-adult eyewitnesses were examined. Adolescents (M = 16.41 years; N = 319) and adults (M = 20.03 years, N = 300) viewed a videotape of a staged theft and then were asked to recall and identify the perpetrator from a target-present or target-absent lineup. Participants were shown one of...

The purpose of the current study was to examine the role of victim age, defendant age, and type of abuse on mock juror decision making. Mock jurors (N = 556) read a trial transcript in which a soccer coach was accused of sexual abuse or physical abuse against a player. The victim’s age (child, adolescent, or young adult), the defendant’s age (young...

Older adults (60- to 99-year-olds) and younger adults (18- to 49-year-olds) viewed a videotaped theft and were then asked to provide a description of the perpetrator. Following a brief delay, participants were presented with a simultaneous, elimination, or wildcard lineup procedure that was either target-present or target-absent. Overall, younger a...

This study examined the influence of victim sex, mock juror sex, and type of child abuse (physical, sexual, emotional, and neglect) on mock jurors’ assessments of eyewitness and defendant integrity, continuous guilt ratings, dichotomous verdicts, and sentencing recommendations. Participants read one of eight versions of a trial transcript and then...

There have been several recent, high-profile cases in the media that have shed light on the perceived leniency in sentencing defendants in sexual assault cases. In a number of these cases, the defendant was well known within their community (e.g., Brock Turner; People v. Turner) or nationally (e.g., Ghomeshi; R v. Ghomeshi). The purpose of this stu...

The purpose of the present studies is to examine the influence of crime scene familiarity on mock jurors’ decisions. Study 1 also examines eyewitness age and number of descriptor errors. In Study 2, the type of descriptor reported and the number of descriptor errors are examined. The participants were given a trial transcript involving a robbery. N...

The current study examined the influence of eyewitness familiarity with the defendant (familiar vs. not familiar), type of descriptor discrepancy (none vs. permanent vs. non-permanent), and eyewitness age (10- vs. 20-year-old) on mock jurors’ decision making. Mock jurors (N = 422 undergraduate students) read a mock trial involving an alleged motor...

The present study examined whether a modified form of a preidentification confidence rating would provide evidence of a suspect's guilt in addition to the identification decision confidence. Participants (N = 241) viewed a videotaped mock crime and were presented with a target-present or target-absent simultaneous, sequential, elimination, or elimi...

The purpose of the current study was to examine whether a defendant’s developmental age, chronological age, and race influenced mock jurors’ decision making. Mock jurors (N = 444) read a trial transcript involving an assault where the defendant allegedly shoved the victim to the ground at a grocery store. The defendant’s developmental age (14 or 24...

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether childhood experiences with family pets are associated with symptoms of depression and anxiety in early adulthood. Undergraduate students (n =318) responded to an online survey that included questions about bonding with childhood pets, exposure to family violence and human aggression directed towa...

The purpose of this study was to examine mock jurors' decisions when faced with a case involving a bully charged with the suicide death of a victim. Mock jurors read a fictional trial transcript detailing the final months of the victim’s life, in which the 16-year-old victim was repeatedly bullied by the 18-year-old defendant. Manipulations include...

This study compared four lineup procedures: the simultaneous, sequential, elimination, and wildcard. Two hundred and sixty-nine university students (M = 20.17 years) watched a mock, videotaped crime. Then, following a brief delay, they viewed a 6-person target-present or -absent lineup using one of the four lineup procedures. For target-present lin...

In the present study the potential interaction between defendant age and alibi corroboration on mock jurors' perceptions and assessments of guilt was examined. Mock jurors (N = 231) read a trial transcript varying the defendant's age (14-, 18-, or 22-years-old) and alibi evidence (no corroboration, person corroboration, or physical corroboration)....

The purpose of this research was to examine the influence of eyewitness age and familiarity with the defendant, and the potential interaction between these variables, on mock jurors' perceptions and decisions. Mock jurors were presented with a mock murder trial transcript that included a positive identification by the victim's daughter who was 4, 1...

The purpose of this study was to assess young children’s lineup identification performance comparative to adults and to determine whether developmental variability exists in reaction time when making correct and incorrect identification decisions across target-present and target-absent lineups. Adults (M_age = 20.00) and young children (M_age= 4.69...

To date, very little research has examined developmental reversals in false memory outside of the word list paradigm. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether knowledge of, and familiarity with types of environments influenced the quantity, accuracy, and errors recalled by children (4- to 6- year-olds) and adults. Using images and open...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the frequency with which child protection workers (CPWs) in Ontario, Canada, seek information about animal cruelty during investigations of child maltreatment and the extent to which they consider information about animal cruelty when making decisions about whether intervention is required. The CPWs (N =...

Mock jurors (N = 224) read a trial summary varying the consistency of the eyewitness's initial lineup identification (ID) decision and confidence. In all conditions, a second positive lineup ID of the suspect/defendant was made. Jurors perceived the witness's description of the criminal, IDs, and testimony overall as more reliable when the witness...