Content uploaded by Christian A. Meissner
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Christian A. Meissner on Dec 30, 2017
Content may be subject to copyright.
A ‘Middle Road’ Approach to Bridging the Basic–Applied
Divide in Eyewitness Identification Research
SEAN M. LANE
1
*and CHRISTIAN A. MEISSNER
2
**
1
Department of Psychology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, USA
2
Department of Psychology, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, USA
SUMMARY
Over a century of laboratory research has explored the mechanisms of memory using a variety of
paradigms and stimuli. In addition, many researchers have taken up Neisser’s challenge to examine
memory under real-world conditions, most prominently including the eyewitness identification
problem. Unfortunately, these ‘high road’ and ‘low road’ perspectives rarely communicate with one
another, with the eyewitness field largely adopting an approach that focusses on methodological
adherence to conditions that mimic real-world situations. In the current paper we advocate for a
‘middle road’ approach that includes a focus on theory development, an emphasis on the interaction
between field and laboratory research and the implementation of convergent approaches to
investigating eyewitness identification. We argue that the field would be invigorated by such an
approach, with benefits accruing to our understanding of eyewitness identification and to the
development of procedures that will ultimately improve eyewitness accuracy. Copyright #2008
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
‘Every science considers the single facts in their relation to other facts, works toward
connections, towards generalities. Science means connection and nothing else...’
Hugo Mu
¨nsterberg (1899, p. 11)
Hugo Mu
¨nsterberg was profoundly interested in applying insights from psychology to
solve practical problems, including issues related to the use of eyewitness testimony.
Furthermore, as illustrated above, he clearly felt that the pursuit of generalizability and
theory building were important goals of the scientific process. We agree with this
sentiment, and argue that the eyewitness identification field, despite its many successes, has
made less theoretical progress than it should have in understanding the psychological
processes that underlie performance. We believe this lack of progress has come because the
field has often neglected to incorporate insights from basic research and theory, has used an
overly strict ecological validity criterion for determining the relevance of extant research
for understanding eyewitness identification and has focussed on demonstrating empirical
facts rather than identifying more general theoretical mechanisms (for discussion on this
APPLIED COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 22: 779–787 (2008)
Published online in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/acp.1482
*Correspondence to: Sean M. Lane, Department of Psychology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA
70803, USA. E-mail: slane@lsu.edu
Correspondence to: Christian A. Meissner, Department of Psychology, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso,
TX 79968, USA. E-mail: cmeissner@utep.edu
Copyright #2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
latter point, see Turtle, Read, Lindsay, & Brimacombe, 2008). In the current paper, we
discuss these issues and propose to overcome these problems by increasing the connection
between basic and applied research.
HIGH ROAD AND LOW ROAD— NEVER THE TWAIN SHALL MEET?
The contemporary study of eyewitness identification arose concurrently with an increased
general interest in studying real-world memory problems — the Practical Aspects of Memory
movement (e.g. Cohen, 1989). In a widely cited talk and series of papers, Neisser (1978, 1982)
characterized two modes of research: the ‘low road’ and the ‘high road’, with the former being
conducted in more ecologically realistic situations and the latter conducted in more
well-controlled laboratory situations. Furthermore, he argued that researchers should embrace
more low road research because little that had been learned from high road research was
useful for shedding light on important real-world problems. Although this particular point has
certainly been debated (see e.g. Banaji & Crowder, 1989, 1994 and subsequent commentary),
it is clear that researchers have heeded the call to conduct more ecological research, whether
by actually conducting field research or by ensuring that research designs contain more
features of the target ecological context. Although we believe the eyewitness identification
field has benefited from increased applied research, we think that Neisser’s exhortation may
also have had unintended negative effects.
Despite the impressive progress of the eyewitness identification field in characterizing
important factors that impact real-world witnesses (e.g. lineup instructions, lineup
procedures or the similarity of lineup members) and techniques that can potentially reduce
identification errors (e.g. Technical Working Group for Eyewitness Evidence, 1999), there
has been little progress in developing a more general theory of eyewitness identification
(for an exception, see Clark, 2003, 2008). Although there may be multiple reasons for this
lack of progress (e.g. the complexity of possible variables), we believe that a primary
reason is that the field has proceeded rather independently from related developments in
more basic research on cognitive (e.g. face identification) and social psychological
processes. In many ways this is understandable, as it appears to us that researchers in the
field have often adopted a ‘traditionalist’ approach that sees the eyewitness identification
task as unique or special in terms of its characteristics. Because of the uniqueness of the
task, it is also often assumed (implicitly or explicitly) that research using tasks that do not
share the traditional ecological features of eyewitness identification are therefore largely
irrelevant (e.g. Ebbesen & Konecni, 1996). In contrast, we argue that although the
eyewitness identification task has some unique characteristics, the cognitive and social
psychological processes that are brought to bear on this task are not unique. Thus, theory
and data from basic research on these processes are relevant to our understanding of
eyewitness identification (see also Brewer & Weber, 2008; Turtle et al., 2008). In short, we
argue that the field’s largely traditionalist approach has limited its potential for theoretical
progress.
STRENGTH FROM DIVERSITY AND INTERACTION: CONVERGENT
OPERATIONS VS. METHODOLOGICAL FIXATION
The problem described in the previous section is not exclusive to the eyewitness
identification field. It has often been argued that the use of converging operations is critical
Copyright #2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 22: 779–787 (2008)
DOI: 10.1002/acp
780 S. M. Lane and C. A. Meissner
for the advancement of scientific understanding (e.g. Garner, Hake, & Eriksen, 1956). This
research strategy is typically described as the use of different tasks or measures to study a
phenomenon with the goal of discriminating between alternative hypotheses. Such
diversity of tasks allows scientists to overcome the weaknesses of any given task, and to the
extent that results are similar across tasks, confidence in one’s conclusions can be increased
(e.g. Campbell & Fiske, 1959). We believe such a strategy is efficacious, and also use this
term more broadly to apply not only to the use of multiple tasks, but also to multiple
complementary methodological approaches or stimuli. Conversely, we refer to the
situation where a single task, approach or type of stimuli has been overemphasized as
methodological fixation. For the same reasons that converging operations can be a fruitful
approach to understanding a phenomenon, the lack of converging operations has the
potential to limit progress in a given field (similarly, see mono-method or mono-operation
bias, Cook & Campbell, 1979).
A historic example of methodological fixation comes from early research on semantic
memory. One goal of this line of research was to understand how general knowledge
concepts are represented and retrieved from long-term memory. For approximately a
decade, research in the area relied almost exclusively on the sentence verification task (e.g.
Collins & Quillian, 1969). In this task, participants were presented with sentences like ‘Is a
chicken a bird’? and reaction time was recorded as the dependent measure. Although a
number of theoretical models were posited based upon these studies, later research
suggested that performance was largely a consequence of the difficulty of the decision task
following retrieval (e.g. McCloskey & Glucksberg, 1979). Consequently, it was generally
recognized that the field became overly dependent on a single task instead of using
converging tasks to understand the relevant psychological processes. Thus, in many ways,
using a single approach limited what researchers were able to learn about semantic
memory.
A ‘MIDDLE ROAD’ APPROACH
Much in the same way that reliance upon the sentence verification task inhibited progress
toward a general understanding of semantic memory, we believe that the traditionalist
approach of focussing on the uniqueness of the eyewitness identification task has limited
our field’s development. If not the traditionalist approach, what do we propose as an
option? Our alternative is not to replace it exclusively with laboratory-based (‘high road’)
research or to suggest that researchers should focus on collecting data in real-world
eyewitness situations (although others have made this ‘low road’ argument; e.g. Yuille,
1993). Rather, we think that much is to be gained from a ‘middle road’ approach that
bridges basic and applied research.
1
For example, using a diversity of theoretical and
empirical approaches allows for the opportunity to overcome limitations of any single
approach. In the context of eyewitness identification research, this would include both
ecological (e.g. field) studies and basic research that examine psychological processes that
are deployed in eyewitness identification. Critically, this approach also assumes a mutually
beneficial interaction between the two types of research and researchers (rather than the
more common independence, or even antagonism between basic and applied researchers).
1
We note that a related ‘winding road’ research strategy has been previously articulated (Mathews & Lane, 2006).
However, there are some differences, and our middle road approach is more elaborated.
Copyright #2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 22: 779–787 (2008)
DOI: 10.1002/acp
Bridging the basic–applied divide 781
Although it is often emphasized that basic research may be applied to real-world settings or
that applied research can provide ideas that can be tested in the lab, we would argue that
real-world settings (or simply research with more ecological features) are ideal for testing
the generalizability of more basic theories of cognition. Thus, we see the interaction
between basic and applied research as leading to a more vibrant field and to deeper
interactions between the various areas of psychology and/or other allied sciences. More
specifically, we see this approach as a means of making considerable theoretical and
applied progress in the field of eyewitness identification.
We believe there are three basic elements to a middle road approach: (a) a focus on
theory development, (b) interaction between field and laboratory research and (c) the use of
convergent approaches to investigate eyewitness identification. Below, we discuss the
elements of this approach in greater detail and then provide examples of research that
exemplify some or all of these elements.
Focus on theory development
The primary goal of a middle road approach is the development of a comprehensive theory
of eyewitness identification. Achieving such a goal has the potential for important scientific
and practical advances (see also Brewer & Weber, 2008; Brewer, Weber, & Semmler,
2007). At one level, this focus lends greater coherence to the scientific enterprise than one
based primarily on testing individual real-world phenomena. Research designed to
discriminate between various theoretical accounts (particularly theories whose assump-
tions are well defined, see Clark, 2008) is much more likely to lead to progress in
understanding the processes underlying eyewitness identification than a more piecemeal
approach. Furthermore, we agree with Turtle et al. (2008) that a focus on processes rather
than phenomena can help researchers better communicate the field’s findings to the legal
community (including jurors). Importantly, we believe that major advances in applications
for eyewitness identification are unlikely to come about absent related theoretical
advances. We also believe that a comprehensive theory of eyewitness identification is the
appropriate answer to critics of eyewitness memory research who argue that research
results are irrelevant unless they precisely replicate real-world conditions (see Clark’s
(2008) one-legged, six-toed Scotsman example). A well-validated theory allows one to
make reasonable predictions about eyewitness memory even for specific situations that
have never been encountered in the laboratory or in field research.
Interaction between field and laboratory research
As noted above, this approach acknowledges the importance of research that ranges from
very basic to highly ecological (e.g. Hermann & Gruneberg, 1993). The interaction that we
propose is both philosophical and literal. At a philosophical level, there is a need to take
seriously research that is conducted across the methodological spectrum, using different
tasks, stimuli, etc. For example, field studies can provide important information about the
specific contextual variables operating in real-world identifications, while laboratory
paradigms allow us to investigate the potential interactions between such variables.
Furthermore, we would argue that much can be gained from conceptualizing real-world
behaviour (like eyewitness identification) in terms of basic cognitive and social
psychological processes, as well as thinking about how basic psychological theories
can apply to the constraints of real-world situations. With this in mind, we suggest that
Copyright #2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 22: 779–787 (2008)
DOI: 10.1002/acp
782 S. M. Lane and C. A. Meissner
graduate training in Psychology and Law should include sufficient exposure to basic
theories of perceptual, cognitive and social psychological processes (including more recent
neuroscientific approaches) and the broad array of research methodologies inherent to
these domains.
At a more literal level, the knowledge obtained by research across the spectrum must be
shared in ways that allow for theory development. In some cases, such interaction can take
place within an individual researcher (e.g. studying a phenomenon in the field and then in
the laboratory). In other cases, research might be conducted by different individuals, and
the interaction occurs through reading one another’s journal articles, conference
presentations, etc. We do acknowledge that such interaction can be difficult. Basic and
field researchers often publish in different journals, attend different conferences, and thus
rarely have the opportunity to discuss the issues of interest. It is challenging enough to keep
up with the great volume of research in one’s own field, let alone learn about other fields
that have different goals or use different terminology. Yet, this problem is not unique to our
field as seen by the increased emphasis on interdisciplinary research in the behavioural
sciences (e.g. Cacioppo, 2007). Despite these challenges, we believe the benefits of such
interaction greatly outweigh the costs. Thus, we believe that encouraging researchers from
across the spectrum to work together to tackle the eyewitness identification ‘problem’ (e.g.
through sessions at conferences, special issues of journals, workshops on new techniques,
etc.) should be a major goal of the field.
Use of convergent approaches
As we have discussed, we believe that there is strength in using a broad array of theoretical
and methodological approaches to understand the cognitive and social processes that
underlie eyewitness identification. Such an approach not only allows for firmer conclusions
about the phenomena under study (i.e. when conclusions are similar across tasks, stimuli,
etc.), but also provides a stronger foundation for theory building and testing. Although one
could argue that a variety of approaches are used in the eyewitness identification literature,
the issue of ecological validity is sometimes used to argue for the irrelevance of research
that employs tasks that do not share all the characteristics of real-world eyewitness
identification (e.g. Ebbesen & Konecni, 1996). While ecological validity can be used as a
valid basis for criticism, we think that its use as a blanket criticism is unproductive and
more harmful than helpful to the field. We argue instead that the core issue, regardless of
whether the research was conducted in field or laboratory settings, is generalizability
(Banaji & Crowder, 1989, 1994). Even field studies can lack generalizability if the situation
studied is a unique one, and regardless of context, studies that lack internal validity
preclude a consideration of the generality of the findings. Thus, in many circumstances,
less ecologically valid studies can contribute more to producing a credible theory of
eyewitness identification than other, more ecologically valid ones. If the goal is to
understand the psychological processes that underlie eyewitness identification, we see no
principled reason why studies of face or word recognition, or those that examine lineup
recognition of non-facial stimuli (e.g. cars, boats, words), should be excluded from
consideration merely because they are not representative of typical eyewitness memory
situations or stimuli. As we have discussed, it is our contention that the processes
underlying eyewitness identification are not special, although the manner in which such
processes are deployed can certainly be influenced by the constraints of the task. Thus, such
Copyright #2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 22: 779–787 (2008)
DOI: 10.1002/acp
Bridging the basic–applied divide 783
studies can play a role in theory development, as can studies that share more features with
real-life eyewitness situations.
RESEARCH EXAMPLES
The approach we have outlined shares some similarities with the ‘in vivo/in vitro’ approach
advocated by Kevin Dunbar (described in Dunbar & Blanchette, 2001). Dunbar studies the
comprehension and production of analogies in both naturalistic (in vivo) and laboratory
(in vitro) contexts. For example, he has examined the use of analogies by researchers in
molecular biology laboratories and in political discourse that appeared in Canadian
newspaper articles. Doing so has allowed him to uncover potential variables (e.g.
generation) that affect the retrieval of analogies that he has subsequently tested in a
laboratory setting. Although there are differences between the approaches (e.g. our focus
on inter-researcher collaboration and the field as a whole), our ‘middle road’ approach
shares his emphasis on theory development and the need for rich interplay between applied
and basic research.
Eyewitness research examples
Within the broader field of psychology and law, there are some areas or individual
investigators which have successfully employed some or all of the characteristics described
above. For example, the field of eyewitness suggestibility was influenced both by the
situations faced by real-world witnesses and by basic memory theory. In a typical study,
participants view a mock crime, read a narrative or answer questions about the event that
include misleading information, and are later tested on their memory for the event (e.g.
Loftus, Miller, & Burns, 1978). A consistent finding is that participants choose or report the
misleading information when tested on their memory for the event. Furthermore, much
research in the area has focussed on testing theoretical mechanisms that were taken from
more basic research on memory. Prominent examples of proposed mechanisms include
overwriting (e.g. Loftus et al., 1978), inaccessibility/blocking (e.g. Christiaansen &
Ochalek, 1983; Eakin, Schreiber, & Sergent-Marshall, 2003) and source monitoring errors
(e.g. Lane, Roussel, Villa, & Morita, 2007; Lindsay & Johnson, 1989; Zaragoza & Lane,
1994). Thus, researchers in the area did not think it necessary to posit a specialized theory
of eyewitness suggestibility, but rather focussed on established fundamental mechanisms
of memory.
We also note that the results of basic research on memory have contributed to successful
real-world legal applications. One prominent example is ‘the Cognitive Interview’ (e.g.
Fisher & Geiselman, 1992). The techniques which make up the interview are motivated by
findings from basic research including context reinstatement (e.g. Tulving & Thomson,
1973) and varied retrieval (e.g. Anderson & Pichert, 1978). Research examining the
efficacy of the Cognitive Interview has generally found increased recall of event detail with
little or no cost to accuracy (e.g. Fisher, Geiselman, & Amador, 1989). What is noteworthy
is that this is not merely a situation where basic research informed practice; rather, these
researchers also conducted an intensive examination of how investigators typically
interview witnesses in the field (for a review, see Fisher & Schreiber, 2007). Thus, the
strength of the Cognitive Interview came from the interplay between basic theory and
real-world application.
Copyright #2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 22: 779–787 (2008)
DOI: 10.1002/acp
784 S. M. Lane and C. A. Meissner
Within our own field of eyewitness identification, we believe that several examples
of ‘middle road’ approaches have been undertaken in recent years. For example,
Clark (2003, 2008) has developed a computational model of eyewitness identification that
relies upon memory theory from a basic research tradition. Similarly, Gronlund’s (2005)
SUSPECTS framework has been used to account for performance in sequential lineups.
Within our own laboratories, we have also begun exploring the role of basic memory and
decision-making theory in eyewitness identification tasks. Meissner, Tredoux, Parker, and
MacLin (2005) introduced a ‘lineup recognition’ paradigm to examine signal detection
perspectives on lineup identification, as well as the role of dual-process theories in
predicting performance across various manipulations (e.g., Yonelinas, 2002). This
paradigm differs from the more traditional eyewitness identification task by providing
multiple identification opportunities to participants across both target-present and
target-absent arrays, yet in doing so it also provides an opportunity to test theory using a
variety of process measures. The paradigm has been used to examine lineup presentation
factors (Meissner et al., 2005), carryover effects from show-ups to lineups (Haw,
Dickinson, & Meissner, 2007), the cross-race effect (Evans, Marcon, & Meissner, in press;
Jackiw, Arbuthnott, Pfeifer, Marcon, & Meissner, 2008) and the relationship between
memory for contextual details and identification accuracy (Lane, Groft, Roussel, &
Calamia, 2008).
CONCLUSION
In closing, we share Mu
¨nsterberg’s belief that scientific endeavours should focus on the
connections between facts, methods and theories. Connections between research on
eyewitness identification and related theory in cognitive and social psychology have been
few in number, despite the fact that these fields are quite mature theoretically and
methodologically, and thus potentially have much to offer. Furthermore, there has often
been a reluctance to acknowledge the relevance of research that utilizes stimuli or tasks
which are thought to be less ecologically valid. We believe that such attitudes have slowed
the theoretical progress of an otherwise vibrant and important field. In the end, we believe a
‘middle road’ approach that provides a central role for theory building and testing can be a
fruitful one for the study of eyewitness identification. This approach assumes that the
eyewitness identification task is not special in terms of the psychological processes
deployed nor is it entirely unique in its characteristics. In addition, the use of converging
methodologies, tasks and stimuli can only strengthen the field’s ability to offer sound
conclusions. Perhaps most importantly, this approach sees basic and applied research as
mutually beneficial. Thus, the goal of achieving a comprehensive scientific theory of
eyewitness identification is also a path toward new and groundbreaking applications that
promise to increase the accuracy of eyewitnesses.
REFERENCES
Anderson, R. C., & Pichert, J. W. (1978). Recall of previously unrecallable information following a
shift in perspective. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior,17, 1–12.
Banaji, M. R., & Crowder, R. G. (1989). The bankruptcy of everyday memory. American
Psychologist,44, 1185–1193.
Copyright #2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 22: 779–787 (2008)
DOI: 10.1002/acp
Bridging the basic–applied divide 785
Banaji, M. R., & Crowder, R. G. (1994). Experimentation and its discontents. In P. E. Morris, &
M. Gruneberg (Eds.), Theoretical aspects of memory (2nd ed., pp. 296–308). New York:
Routledge.
Brewer, N., & Weber, N. (2008). Eyewitness confidence and latency: Indices of memory processes
not just markers of accuracy. Applied Cognitive Psychology,22, 827–840. DOI: 10.1002/acp.1486
Brewer, N., Weber, N., & Semmler, C. (2007). A role for theory in eyewitness identification research.
In R. C. L. Lindsay, D. F. Ross, J. D. Read, & M. Toglia (Eds.), Handbook of eyewitness
psychology: Memory for people (Vol. 2, pp. 210–218). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Cacioppo, J. T. (2007). The rise in collaborative psychological science. APS Observer,20, 1–2.
Campbell, D. T., & Fiske, D. W. (1959). Convergent and discriminant validation by the multi-
trait-multimethod matrix. Psychological Bulletin,56, 81–105.
Christiaansen, R. E., & Ochalek, K. (1983). Editing misleading information from memory: Evidence
for the coexistence of original and postevent information. Memory & Cognition,11, 467–475.
Clark, S. E. (2003). A memory and decision model for eyewitness identification. Applied Cognitive
Psychology,17, 629–654.
Clark, S. E. (2008). The importance (necessity) of computational modelling for eyewitness
identification research. Applied Cognitive Psychology,22, 803–813. DOI: 10.1002/acp.1484
Cohen, G. (1989). Memory in the real world. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Collins, A. M., & Quillian, M. R. (1969). Retrieval time from semantic memory. Journal of Verbal
Learning and Verbal Behavior,8, 240–248.
Cook, T. D., & Campbell, D. T. (1979). Quasi-experimentation: Design and analysis issues for field
settings. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Dunbar, K., & Blanchette, I. (2001). The in vivo/in vitro approach to cognition: The case of analogy.
Trends in Cognitive Sciences,5, 334–339.
Eakin, D. K., Schreiber, T. A., & Sergent-Marshall, S. (2003). Misinformation effects in eyewitness
memory: The presence and absence of memory impairment as a function of warning and
misinformation accessibility. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and
Cognition,29, 813–825.
Ebbesen, E. B., & Konecni, V. J. (1996). Eyewitness memory research: Probative v. prejudicial value.
Expert Evidence,5, 2–28.
Evans, J. R., Marcon, J. L., & Meissner, C. A. (in press). Cross-racial lineup identification: The
potential benefits of context reinstatement. Psychology, Crime, & Law.
Fisher, R. P., & Geiselman, R. E. (1992). Memory-enhancing techniques for investigative inter-
viewing: The cognitive interview. Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas.
Fisher, R. P., & Schreiber, N. (2007). Interviewing protocols to improve eyewitness memory. In M.
Toglia, R. Lindsay, D. Ross, & J. Reed (Eds), The handbook of eyewitness psychology: Memory for
events (Vol. 1, pp. 53–80). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum Associates.
Fisher, R. P., Geiselman, R. E., & Amador, M. (1989). Field test of the cognitive interview: Enhancing
the recollection of actual victims and witnesses of crime. Journal of Applied Psychology,74,
722–727.
Garner, W. R., Hake, H. W., & Eriksen, C. W. (1956). Operationism and the concept of perception.
Psychological Review,63, 149–159.
Gronlund, S. D. (2005). Sequential lineup advantage: Contributions of distinctiveness and recollec-
tion. Applied Cognitive Psychology,19, 23–37.
Haw, R. M., Dickinson, J. J., & Meissner, C. A. (2007). The phenomenology of carryover effects
between showup and lineup identification. Memory,15, 117–127.
Hermann, D., & Gruneberg, M. (1993). The need to expand the horizons of the practical aspects of
memory movement. Applied Cognitive Psychology,7, 553–565.
Jackiw, L. B., Arbuthnott, K. D., Pfeifer, J. E., Marcon, J. L., & Meissner, C. A. (2008). Examining
the cross-race effect in lineup identification using Caucasian and first nations samples. Canadian
Journal of Behavioural Science,40, 52–57.
Lane, S. M., Groft, S., Roussel, C. C., & Calamia, M. (2008). It’s (sometimes) in the details: Memory
for contextual features and eyewitness identification. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the
American Psychology-Law Society, Jacksonville, FL.
Lane, S. M., Roussel, C. C., Villa, D., & Morita, S. (2007). Features and feedback: Enhancing
metamnemonic knowledge at retrieval reduces source monitoring errors. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition,33, 1131–1142.
Copyright #2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 22: 779–787 (2008)
DOI: 10.1002/acp
786 S. M. Lane and C. A. Meissner
Lindsay, D. S., & Johnson, M. K. (1989). Misleading suggestions can impair eyewitnesses’ ability to
remember event details. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition,
16, 1077–1083.
Loftus, E. F., Miller, D. G., & Burns, H. G. (1978). Semantic integration of verbal information into a
visual memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory,4, 19–31.
Mathews, R. C., & Lane, S. M. (May 2006). From the lab to the world and back again. Presentation at
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Department of Cognitive Science.
McCloskey, M., & Glucksberg, S. (1979). Decision processes in verifying category membership
statements: Implications for models of semantic memory. Cognitive Psychology,11, 1–37.
Meissner, C. A., Tredoux, C. G., Parker, J. F., & MacLin, O. H. (2005). Eyewitness decisions in
simultaneous and sequential lineups: A dual-process signal detection theory analysis. Memory &
Cognition,33, 783–792.
Mu
¨nsterberg, H. (1899). Psychology and history. Psychological Review,6, 1–31.
Neisser, U. (1978). Memory: What are the important questions? In M. M. Gruneberg, P. E. Morris, &
R. N. Sykes (Eds), Practical aspects of memory (pp. 3–24). London: Academic Press.
Neisser U. (Ed.). (1982). Memory observed. San Francisco: Freeman.
Technical Working Group for Eyewitness Evidence. (1999). Eyewitness evidence: A guide for law
enforcement. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice.
Tulving, E., & Thomson, D. M. (1973). Encoding specificity and retrieval processes in episodic
memory. Psychological Review,80, 353–373.
Turtle, J., Read, J. D., Lindsay, D. S., & Brimacombe, C. A. E. (2008). Toward a more informative
psychological science of eyewitness evidence. Applied Cognitive Psychology,22, 769–778. DOI:
10.1002/acp.1481
Yonelinas, A. P. (2002). The nature of recollection and familiarity: A review of 30 years of research.
Journal of Memory & Language,46, 441–517.
Yuille, J. C. (1993). We must study forensic eyewitnesses to know about them. American Psychol-
ogist,48, 572–573.
Zaragoza, M. S., & Lane, S. M. (1994). Source misattributions and the suggestibility of eyewitness
memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition,20, 934–945.
Copyright #2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 22: 779–787 (2008)
DOI: 10.1002/acp
Bridging the basic–applied divide 787
