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Eye Remember What Happened: Eye-Closure Improves Recall of Events but not
Face Recognition
ANNELIES VREDEVELDT
1,2
*, COLIN G. TREDOUX
1
, KATE KEMPEN
1
and ALICIA NORTJE
1
1
Department of Psychology, University of Cape Town, South Africa
2
Department of Criminal Law and Criminology, VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Summary: Eye-closure improves event recall. We investigated whether eye-closure can also facilitate subsequent performance on
lineup identification (Experiment 1) and face recognition tasks (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, participants viewed a theft, recalled
the event with eyes open or closed, mentally rehearsed the perpetrator’s face with eyes open or closed, and viewed a target-present
or target-absent lineup. Eye-closure improved event recall, but did not significantly affect lineup identification accuracy. Experiment
2 employed a face recognition paradigm with high statistical power to permit detection of potentially small effects. Participants viewed
20 faces and were later asked to recognize the faces. Thirty seconds before the recognition task, participants either completed an
unrelated distracter task (control condition), or were instructed to think about the face with their eyes open (rehearsal condition)
or closed (eye-closure condition). We found no differences between conditions in discrimination accuracy or response criterion.
Potential explanations and practical implications are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Incorrect eyewitness testimony has played an important role in
the majority of known wrongful convictions (Gross & Shaffer,
2012). Although some of these eyewitness errors involved
deliberate deception, the majority of errors were due to
eyewitnesses who were genuinely mistaken. Many procedures
have been developed to help eyewitnesses—some aimed at
improving memory retrieval processes during investigative
interviews (e.g. the Cognitive Interview; Fisher & Geiselman,
1992; for meta-analyses see Köhnken, Milne, Memon, & Bull,
1999; Memon, Meissner, & Fraser, 2010), and some aimed at
improving lineup identification accuracy (e.g.double-blind
administration of lineups; Greathouse & Kovera, 2009; see
also Clark, 2012). Several authors recently showed that a very
simple procedure—instructing witnesses to close their
eyes during the interview—improves retrieval of accurate
information about witnessed events (e.g. Perfect et al., 2008;
Vredeveldt, Baddeley, & Hitch, 2014; Wagstaff et al., 2004).
An important question that has not yet been answered,
however, is whether eye-closure can also improve facial
identification accuracy. Researchers and policy makers are
constantly looking for ways to facilitate facial identification
—hence, the present research investigates whether eye-closure
during mental rehearsal of a perpetrator’s face can improve
subsequent lineup identification accuracy (Experiment 1) and
face recognition performance (Experiment 2).
Eye-closure seems to be associated with at least two cogni-
tive benefits: concentration and visualization. When people
have their eyes closed, they are better able to concentrate on
difficult cognitive tasks. This phenomenon was first demon-
strated by Glenberg, Schroeder, and Robertson (1998), who
found that people are more likely to spontaneously close their
eyes or avert their gaze when completing more difficult tasks.
Moreover, they found that participants instructed to close
their eyes performed better on mathematical and general-
knowledge questions. Similarly, children perform better on
a wide range of cognitive tasks when they are instructed to
close their eyes or look away (e.g. Doherty-Sneddon, Bonner,
& Bruce, 2001; Phelps, Doherty-Sneddon, & Warnock,
2006). Further support for the idea that eye-closure improves
general concentration comes from work showing that eye-
closure helps participants to overcome the cross-modal
memory impairment caused by auditory distraction (Perfect,
Andrade, & Eagan, 2011). These combined findings may be
explained in terms of Glenberg’s (1997) embodied cognition
account, which construes environmental monitoring and
memory retrieval as two concurrent tasks competing for
cognitive resources. When a person disengages from the
environment (e.g. through eye-closure), more cognitive
resources are available for the memory retrieval task, thus
enhancing performance.
The working memory model (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974)
predicts that concurrent tasks in the same modality interfere
more with each other than tasks in different modalities.
Much evidence has accumulated in support of the
modality-specific interference hypothesis (for an overview
see Baddeley, 2007). Of particular relevance to the current
research is that visual tasks have been found to disrupt the
vividness of visual imagery, but not auditory imagery
(Baddeley & Andrade, 2000). This suggests that cutting out
visual distractions through eye-closure should be particularly
helpful for retrieving visual information from memory, which
is what several studies have found (e.g.Perfect et al., 2008,
Experiment 2; Vredeveldt, Baddeley, & Hitch, 2012; 2014;
but see Perfect et al., 2008, Experiment 4 and 5). The idea that
eye-closure facilitates visualization is further supported by
findings that closing the eyes increases mental simulation of
hypothetical events (Caruso & Gino, 2011) and improves
performance on tasks requiring visual imagery (Rode, Revol,
Rossetti, Boisson, & Bartolomeo, 2007). Indeed, individuals
who keep their eyes closed during memory retrieval exhibit
activity in brain regions associated with visual imagery
(Wais & Gazzaley, 2014; Wais, Rubens, Boccanfuso, &
Gazzaley, 2010). In sum, eye-closure improves recall perfor-
mance through a combination of enhanced concentration and
visualization (see also Vredeveldt, Hitch, & Baddeley, 2011;
Vredeveldt & Perfect, 2014).
*Correspondence to: Annelies Vredeveldt, VU University Amsterdam, Faculty
of Law, Department of Criminal Law and Criminology, De Boelelaan 1105,
1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
E-mail: anneliesvredeveldt@gmail.com
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Applied Cognitive Psychology,Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 29: 169–180 (2015)
Published online 7 January 2015 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/acp.3092
However, it is not clear whether eye closure will also
improve facial identification. Of course, eye-closure cannot
be administered during a face recognition task—witnesses
cannot recognize a face while they have their eyes closed.
Eye-closure can be manipulated during mental rehearsal of
a face just prior to the recognition task, but it is not evident
that this will have the same effect. Mental rehearsal of faces
has been subject to previous empirical investigations, which
have typically found that the instruction to mentally rehearse
a face improves subsequent recognition performance
(e.g. Busey, Tunnicliff, Loftus, & Loftus, 2000; Graefe
& Watkins, 1980; Read, Hammersley, Cross-Calvert, &
McFadzen, 1989; Sporer, 1988; but see Sporer, 1996).
Importantly, evidence suggests that these benefits are most
likely due to the rehearsal of verbal labels, rather than truly
visual rehearsal (Chance & Goldstein, 1976; Jones,
Armstrong, Casey, Burson, & Memon, 2013; Kerr &
Winograd, 1982; Nakabayashi, Burton, Brandimonte, &
Lloyd-Jones, 2012; but see Sporer, 1989). In other words,
it seems that witnesses assign verbal labels to the face during
encoding (e.g. ‘big nose’), subsequently rehearse those
verbal labels, and then apply them to the to-be-recognized
face to decide whether it is the target face.
Putting it all together, how might eye-closure during
mental rehearsal affect subsequent face recognition? There
are (at least) two ways in which witnesses can perform a
facial identification task. During the recognition phase,
witnesses can compare their mental image of the perpe-
trator’s face to the to-be-recognized face. Because eye-
closure during mental rehearsal likely helps witnesses to
conjure up a more vivid mental image of the face
(e.g. Baddeley & Andrade, 2000), it should facilitate the
comparison between the mental image and the image
presented during the recognition phase. However, comparing
a mental image to a presented image is a cognitively
demanding task, and the modality-specific interference
hypothesis suggests that the mental visual image may be
disrupted as soon as the witness is confronted with the
to-be-recognized face. Therefore, a plausible alternative
strategy would be to rely on some form of verbal processing
during the recognition phase (see e.g. Jones et al., 2013). If
the witness takes this approach, it is important that the verbal
labels are both accurate and discriminative (e.g. the label
‘two eyes’may not be very helpful to discriminate between
different faces). Through enhanced concentration and visual-
ization during rehearsal, eye-closure may help the witness to
assign more helpful verbal labels to the face, and to rehearse
them more effectively. Therefore, regardless of whether the
witness relies on visual or verbal processes during face
recognition, we predicted that eye-closure during mental
rehearsal would improve facial identification performance.
In sum, eye-closure improves recall of events, but it is
unclear whether eye-closure improves facial identification.
Given that person identification plays a central role in
criminal investigations, it is important to test this question
empirically. In the present research, we investigated whether
eye-closure during mental rehearsal would improve subse-
quent facial identification. Experiment 1 employed a lineup
identification paradigm to investigate whether eye-closure
during rehearsal of a face immediately before viewing a
lineup would improve performance on target-present and
target-absent lineups. We predicted that eye-closure would
facilitate mental rehearsal of the face, and that this would
help witnesses to decide which face (if any) in the subse-
quent lineup was the target face. We also included free and
cued recall measures to enable comparisons with previous
studies showing that eye-closure improves event recall.
Experiment 2 was a laboratory-based study with high power,
using methods typical of the face recognition literature. We
predicted (i) that participants who received the opportunity
to mentally rehearse the face prior to recognition would
perform better than participants who did not receive this
opportunity, and (ii) that eye-closure during mental rehearsal
would increase its effectiveness.
EXPERIMENT 1
Method
Power calculation
In recall contexts, various effect sizes for the eye-closure
effect have been reported, usually within the range of
medium to large (ds between 0.50 and 1.00; e.g. Perfect
et al., 2008; Vredeveldt et al., 2012, 2014; Vredeveldt &
Penrod, 2013; Wagstaff et al., 2004). However, these effect
sizes are not directly relevant to the present study, since
recall performance is typically measured on a continuous scale
(e.g. number of correct details reported), whereas lineup
identification performance is measured on a dichotomous
(correct vs. incorrect decision) or categorical scale (correct
identification, false identification, foil identification, correct
rejection, or incorrect rejection). Therefore, we decided on
a sample size that would allow us to detect a small- to
medium-sized effect (d= 0.40 with power = .80) but would
still be feasible to collect (viz., 96 participants per condition).
Participants
We recruited 192 undergraduate students (53 male) with a
mean age of 20.08 (SD = 2.23) via the Student Research
Participation Programme at the University of Cape Town.
Under the Apartheid government (1948 –1994), South
Africans were classified, and segregated, into several popula-
tion groups by law. In the region where we conducted our
study, there were four main groups: Black (people of African
descent), White (people of European descent), Coloured
(people of mixed ethnicity, or Indonesian, or San descent),
and Indian (people descended from the Indian subcontinent
of Asia). This classification is no longer enforced by law,
but is still used in the national census (Statistics South
Africa, 2012), and implicitly affects life in South Africa in
many ways (for an overview, see Worden, 2011). Further,
much previous research has shown that individuals have
more difficulty recognising faces of other ethnicities
compared to faces of their own ethnicity, a phenomenon that
has become known as the own-race bias (Malpass &
Kravitz, 1969; see Meissner & Brigham, 2001b, for a
meta-analysis), although it may more accurately be
described as an own-group bias (Bernstein, Young, &
Hugenberg, 2007; Chiroro, Tredoux, Radaelli, & Meissner,
2008; Sporer, 2001). Therefore, we included participant
170 A. Vredeveldt et al.
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 29: 169–180 (2015)
ethnicity as a sampling variable, to ensure equal numbers of
own-ethnicity and other-ethnicity identifications in each
experimental condition. Thus, our sample included 96
participants of the same ethnicity as the perpetrator in
this study (White) and 96 participants of another
ethnicity (of which 47 Black, 29 Coloured, 14 Indian,
and 6 of another ethnicity).
Design
Interview condition (eyes open or closed) was manipulated
between-subjects. To control for potential extraneous
influences, we used a counterbalanced design with the
following sampling variables: participant ethnicity (half
were of the same ethnicity as the perpetrator and half were
of a different ethnicity), perpetrator identity (three different
actors were used to portray the perpetrator), type of lineup
(half were target-present and half were target-absent), and
lineup position (the target or target replacement appeared
either in position 3 or 7 in the lineup).
The data were collected in two phases. During the first
data collection phase (N= 96), all participants recalled the
event prior to the identification task. Additionally, half of
them (N= 48) were questioned about the perpetrator’s
appearance, whereas the other half was not, to assess
potential verbal overshadowing effects (Meissner &
Brigham, 2001a; Schooler & Engstler-Schooler, 1990).
However, we found no evidence for a verbal overshadowing
effect (adding to the accumulating set of mixed findings and
declining effect sizes with regard to verbal overshadowing;
Francis, 2012; Schooler, 2011), and the perpetrator-
description manipulation did not interact with the eye-
closure manipulation; therefore, it is not discussed further.
The second data collection phase (N= 96) was conducted
one year later to boost statistical power for the lineup
identification analysis. Because our sole aim was to provide
a more powerful analysis of our primary research question
(i.e. the effect of eye-closure on lineup performance), free
and cued recall data were not collected during this phase.
The distribution of lineup data in the two data collection
phases was virtually identical; hence, the data were
combined in the lineup analyses reported below.
Materials
Participants watched a 90-s video depicting a theft in a
bookshop. In the video, a White male looks around in the
shop, picks up a book, asks the cashier several questions
about the book, and then runs out of the bookshop without
paying. There were three versions of the video, each
depicting a different White male perpetrator. The videos
only differed in terms of the actor who stole the book, the
appearance of the book that was stolen, and the passers-by
in the background of the video. Each actor followed a
detailed script; hence, their actions and utterances were
generally consistent across the three videos.
Lineups were constructed using a modal description
procedure. For each perpetrator, six participants unfamiliar
with the video inspected a photograph of the face, completed
a brief filler task, and provided a description of the face.
Descriptors that appeared in at least three descriptions were
included in the modal description for each perpetrator. Next,
six other participants selected 12 faces from a database of
370 White males that matched each modal description. Eight
photographs, selected by at least three participants, were
included as foils in the lineups. In target-absent lineups, the
photograph selected most often by the participants replaced
the photograph of the perpetrator. The target (replacement)
appeared in position 3 or 7. To measure lineup fairness, 81
mock witnesses attempted to pick the perpetrator from each
lineup based on the modal description associated with that
perpetrator. All three lineups included at least five plausible
choices, with effective size ranging from 5.37 to 6.33
(calculated using Tredoux’sE, 1998; see also Malpass,
1981). There was no bias against Perpetrators A and B, but
there was some bias against Perpetrator C (p= .032, chosen
by 14 out of 81 mock witnesses). However, because there
was an even greater bias towards another member in the
lineup (p<.001, chosen by 22 out of 81 mock witnesses),
and because the lineup still included 5.78 fully appropriate
members, it was deemed acceptable.
Procedure
Participants were tested individually. They were informed
that they would be asked to provide ethical judgments about
several hypothetical scenarios. After providing informed
consent, participants watched the book theft video and
completed a 5-min filler task, which comprised of providing
ethicality ratings for five stories about unrelated ethical
dilemmas (e.g. minor fraud). Subsequently, they were
interviewed about the video, either with their eyes open or
with their eyes closed (adherence to the eye-closure instruc-
tion was monitored by the interviewer). They were instructed
to answer each question in as much detail as possible, but not
to guess; a ‘don’t know’response was permissible. The
interview started with a free-recall phase including one
general prompt (‘tell me everything you can remember about
the events in the video’) followed by four open questions
(probing descriptions of the shop, the customers, the verbal
interaction, and the concluding scene). In the free-recall
phase, participants provided a confidence rating for each
answer as a whole (i.e. five ratings in total; one free-recall
and four open questions), on a scale from 0% (not at all
confident) to 100% (extremely confident). Finally, all
participants answered eight specific questions about visual
details in the video (e.g. ‘what did the book look like?’)
and eight about auditory-verbal details (e.g. ‘what reason
did he give to get a discount?’), in chronological order. In
the cued-recall phase, participants provided a confidence
rating for each response, except where they indicated ‘don’t
know’(i.e. a maximum of 16 ratings in total).
After the interview, all participants were informed that
they would see a lineup and were given 30 s to ‘think about
the face of the book thief in the video’. The experimenter
confirmed that participants in the eyes-closed condition kept
their eyes closed throughout the 30-s period, and that
participants in the eyes-open condition looked at a fixation
cross. All participants were informed that the thief may or
may not be present in the lineup. Participants viewed a
target-absent or target-present lineup, indicated their
decision by pressing the appropriate key on the keyboard,
and rated their confidence on a scale of 0 to 100%.
Eye-closure and face recognition 171
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 29: 169–180 (2015)
Data coding
All recorded interviews were transcribed verbatim. Two
independent coders constructed a list of details about the
event, and coded each detail as correct, incorrect, subjective
(e.g. ‘he was ugly’), or repeated. Event details were also
coded for modality (visual or auditory) and type of detail
(person, action, object, or surrounding; cf. e.g. Milne & Bull,
2002). The two coding schemes were combined to create one
final coding scheme (disagreements were resolved by
discussion). One coder, blind to condition, coded all
transcripts, and any statements made by participants that
were not in the original coding scheme were added progres-
sively. The second coder, blind to condition, double-coded
25% of the interviews. Interrater reliability for details provided
in the free-recall phase (i.e. general prompt and open questions)
was deemed acceptable for accuracy (correct, incorrect,
subjective, or repeated), κ= .78, p<.001, modality (visual
or auditory), κ= .92, p<.001, and type of detail (person,
action, object, or surrounding), κ= .85, p<.001.
With respect to cued recall, several studies have found that
eye-closure facilitates recall of precise responses, while
leaving imprecise responses unaffected (Vredeveldt & Penrod,
2013; Vredeveldt & Sauer, 2014; Vredeveldt et al., 2011).
Therefore, responses to the 16 specific questions about visual
and auditory details were not only coded in terms of accu-
racy but also in terms of precision (see also Goldsmith,
Koriat, & Weinberg-Eliezer, 2002; Weber & Brewer, 2008;
on the related concept of ‘grain size’). Responses could be
coded as precisely correct (e.g. ‘a red book with white
writing’), imprecisely correct (e.g. ‘a red book’), incorrect
(e.g. ‘a blue book’), or omitted (e.g. ‘don’t know’). Responses
were coded as incorrect if they contained at least one inaccu-
rate element. Due to insufficient data, incorrect responses
were not coded for precision. Interrater reliability (for the
decision to code an answer as precise-correct, imprecise-
correct, incorrect, or omitted) was high, κ= .86, p<.001.
Results
Free recall
Table 1 shows the number of correct, incorrect, and subjective
details reported about persons, actions, objects, and surroundings
in the event, provided in the free-recall phase. Figure 1 shows
the data broken down by modality of details. The data
were examined using multivariate analyses of variance
(MANOVA), followed by univariate analyses of variance
(ANOVA) assessing modality and type of detail. To reduce
positive skew, all free-recall variables were square-root
transformed prior to analysis.
Correct detail. A MANOVA using the number of visual
and auditory correct details as dependent variables revealed
a significant main effect of interview condition, F
(2, 93)
=4.30,
p= .016, η
2
= .09, d= 0.55. Participants who closed their eyes
reported significantly more correct details (M= 39.92,
SD = 11.94) than participants who kept their eyes open
(M= 33.98, SD = 9.53). Univariate ANOVAs showed that
the effect of interview condition was significant for auditory
details, F
(1, 94)
= 7.33, p= .008, η
2
= .07, and marginally
significant for visual details, F
(1, 94)
= 3.83, p= .053,
η
2
= .04 (see Figure 1). Another set of univariate analyses
showed that interview condition had a significant effect
on correct details pertaining to persons, F
(1, 94)
= 4.53,
p= .036, η
2
= .05, and objects, F
(1, 94)
= 9.29, p= .003,
η
2
= .09, a marginally significant effect on details relating
to actions, F
(1, 94)
= 3.78, p= .055, η
2
= .04, and no signifi-
cant effect on details pertaining to surroundings (F<1; see
Table 1).
Incorrect details. A MANOVA using visual and auditory
incorrect details as dependent variables revealed no differ-
ence between the eyes-open (M= 4.60, SD = 3.51) and
eyes-closed (M= 5.71, SD = 4.92) conditions (F<1).
Univariate ANOVAs revealed no significant effects of eye-
closure on auditory (F<1) or visual incorrect details,
F
(1, 94)
= 1.26, p= .264, η
2
= .01, d= 0.26. Because
transformations did not correct the positive skew and
leptokurtosis observed for the incorrect-recall data broken
down by type of detail, Mann–Whitney tests were conducted
for this analysis. Interview condition had no impact on the
number of incorrect details about actions, U= 1086.00,
p=.628, η
2
= .00, objects, U=958.00, p=.119, η
2
=.03, or
surroundings, U= 1039.00, p=.361, η
2
= .01, but eye-closure
increased the number of incorrect details reported about
persons, U=936.00, p=.045, η
2
=.04. However, these
findings need to be interpreted with caution, as the data
revealed floor effects (see Table 1).
Subjective details. A MANOVA using visual and auditory
subjective details as dependent variables revealed no differ-
ence between the eyes-open (M=6.06, SD = 5.03) and eyes-
closed (M=7.64, SD = 6.18) conditions, F
(2, 93)
=1.49,
Table 1. Means (M) and standard deviations (SD) for the number
of correct, incorrect, and subjective details about persons, actions,
objects, and surroundings provided in the free-recall phase in
Experiment 1
Condition
Eyes open Eyes closed Total
M SD M SD M SD
Person
Correct 4.38 2.17 5.58 3.29 4.98 2.84
Incorrect 0.21 0.50 0.46 0.71 0.33 0.63
Subjective 0.58 0.96 1.19 1.30 0.89 1.18
Action
Correct 16.10 4.63 18.00 4.62 17.05 4.70
Incorrect 3.19 2.13 3.27 2.97 3.23 2.57
Subjective 3.63 3.32 4.02 3.72 3.82 3.51
Object
Correct 6.83 3.33 9.15 4.24 7.99 3.97
Incorrect 0.58 0.87 1.15 1.87 0.86 1.48
Subjective 0.58 0.92 0.71 1.20 0.65 1.07
Surrounding
Correct 6.67 3.60 7.19 3.6 6.93 3.60
Incorrect 0.63 1.04 0.83 1.10 0.73 1.07
Subjective 1.27 1.82 1.73 2.21 1.50 2.03
Total
Correct 33.98 9.53 39.92 11.94 36.95 11.15
Incorrect 4.60 3.51 5.71 4.92 5.16 4.29
Subjective 6.06 5.03 7.65 6.18 6.85 5.66
172 A. Vredeveldt et al.
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 29: 169–180 (2015)
p=.231, η
2
= .03, d= 0.28. Univariate ANOVAs revealed no
significant effects of eye-closure on auditory (F<1) or visual
subjective details, F
(1, 94)
=2.95, p=.089, η
2
= .03. Mann–
Whitney tests revealed that interview condition did not signif-
icantly affect the number of subjective details about actions,
U= 1072.00, p=.556, η
2
=.00, objects, U= 1109.00,
p=.719, η
2
= .00, or surroundings, U= 1035.00, p=.371,
η
2
= .01, but eye-closure increased the number of subjective
details reported about persons, U=837.00, p=.012, η
2
= .07.
Again, these findings need to be interpreted with caution, in
light of floor effects (see Table 1).
Confidence. Proportion correct was calculated by dividing
the number of correct details by the total number of details
in that answer (excluding repetitions). There was a signifi-
cant but weak positive correlation between expressed confi-
dence in a particular answer (on a scale of 0 to 100%) and
proportion correct for that answer, r(456) = .127, p= .007,
r
2
= .02.
Cued recall
Figure 2 shows the number of precisely correct, imprecisely
correct, incorrect, and ‘don’t know’answers provided in
response to the 16 specific questions. We conducted 2
(Interview Condition: eyes open, eyes closed) x 2 (Modality
of Encoded Information: visual, auditory) mixed ANOVAs
for each of the dependent variables.
Precise-correct responses. As illustrated in Figure 2, eye-
closure nearly doubled the number of precise-correct
responses, F
(1, 92)
= 24.28, p<.001, η
2
= .21, d= 1.01. There
was no significant effect of modality of encoded information,
F
(1, 92)
= 2.15, p= .146, η
2
= .02, and no interaction between
eye-closure and modality (F<1).
Imprecise-correct responses. There was no significant
effect of interview condition on the number of imprecise-
correct answers, F
(1, 92)
=2.81, p=.097, η
2
= .03, d=0.34.
Participants provided significantly more imprecise-correct
answers to questions about auditory details (M=3.53,
SD = 1.24) compared to visual details (M=2.28, SD =1.19),
F
(1, 92)
= 60.13, p<.001, η
2
= .39. There was no interaction
between eye-closure and modality (F<1).
Incorrect responses. Eye-closure did not significantly
affect incorrect responding, F
(1, 92)
=2.31, p= .132, η
2
=.02,
d=0.31. Participants provided significantly more incorrect
responses to questions about auditory details (M=1.64,
SD = 1.23) compared to visual details (M=.85, SD = .82),
F
(1, 92)
= 29.56, p<.001, η
2
= .24. There was no interaction
between eye-closure and modality (F<1).
(a) Visual
Correct Incorrect Subjective
Mean Number of Details Reported
0
5
10
15
20
25
Interview Condition(b) Auditory
Correct Incorrect Subjective
Eyes open
Eyes closed
Figure 1. Mean number of correct, incorrect, and subjective details provided in the free-recall phase in Experiment 1. Panel (a) shows visual
details and panel (b) shows auditory details. Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals
(a) Visual
Fine Coarse Incorrect Don't
Mean Number of Responses
0
1
2
3
4
Interview Condition(b) Auditory
Fine Coarse Incorrect Don't
Eyes open
Eyes closed
correct correct know correct correct know
Figure 2. Mean number of precise-correct, imprecise-correct, incorrect, and ‘don’t know’responses provided in the cued-recall phase in
Experiment 1. Panel (a) shows visual details and panel (b) shows auditory details. Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals
Eye-closure and face recognition 173
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 29: 169–180 (2015)
‘Don’t know’responses. Eye-closure significantly decreased
the number of ‘don’t know’responses, F
(1, 92)
=9.05,p=.003,
η
2
= .09, d=0.61 (see Figure 2). Additionally, there were
significantly more ‘don’t know’answers in response to
questions about visual details (M=2.72,SD = 1.37) compared
to auditory details (M=.97, SD= .91), F
(1, 92)
=128.04,
p<.001, η
2
= .58. There was no interaction between eye-
closure and modality (F<1).
Confidence. Participants rated their confidence in each
response (except ‘don’tknow’responses) on a scale of 0 to
100%. Correlational analyses revealed modest but significant
positive correlations between confidence and accuracy
(correct, incorrect), r
pb
(1180) = .179, p<.001, r
2
= .03, and
between confidence and response type (precise-correct,
imprecise-correct, and incorrect), r
s
(1215) = .129, p<.001,
r
2
= .02. However, a 2 (Interview Condition: eyes open, eyes
closed) × 3 (Response Type: precise-correct, imprecise-
correct, incorrect) mixed ANOVA on confidence ratings with
repeated measures on the second variable revealed no
significant difference in confidence in precise-correct
(M= 76.4%, SD = 14.8%), imprecis e-correct (M= 75.7%,
SD = 14.2%), and incorrect (M= 73.3%, SD = 19.0%)
responses (F<1). There was also no significant effect of
interview condition, F
(1, 69)
= 1.08, p= .30, η
2
= .02, and no
interaction between condition and response type (F<1).
Lineups
Table 2 shows the frequency of lineup decisions in the eyes-
open and eyes-closed conditions. When the perpetrator was
not in the lineup, very few participants made an identifi-
cation. Even when the perpetrator was present, nearly half
of the participants rejected the lineup. A chi-square test
revealed no significant effect of eye-closure on decisions
for target-present lineups, χ
2
(2, N= 96) = 1.65, p= .471,
Cramer’sV= .13, or target-absent lineups, χ
2
(2, N= 96)
= 0.79, p= .722, Cramer’sV= .09. To explore performance
further, we also assessed overall accuracy on the line-up
task, which is achieved either by making a correct iden-
tification on a target-present lineup, or by correctly rejecting
a target-absent lineup. There was no significant effect of
eye-closure on lineup accuracy, χ
2
(1, N= 192) = 0.80,
p= .456, Cramer’sV= .06.
Of course, the absence of a statistically significant differ-
ence between conditions does not mean that the means are
statistically equivalent. To test for statistical equivalence,
one must first determine the ‘minimum inconsequential
difference’—that is, the value considered inconsequential
based on substantive theoretical considerations and/or
professional consensus (Tryon, 2001; Tryon & Lewis, 2008).
Unfortunately, we do not have the requisite substantive
theoretical grounds for estimating this value appropriately.
However, we can turn the question around: in order to
conclude on the basis of the present data that mean accuracy
in the eyes-open and eyes-closed condition was statistically
equivalent (using the alternative inferential confidence
interval approach; Tryon & Lewis, 2008), one would have
to consider the minimum inconsequential difference to be
21% accuracy. The reasonability of this assumption will be
addressed in the General Discussion.
As a secondary interest, we examined the role of partici-
pant ethnicity in lineup identification performance. There
was no significant effect of participant ethnicity on decisions
for target-absent lineups, χ
2
(2, N= 96) = 1.00, p= .631,
Cramer’sV= .13, but there was a significant effect for
target-present lineups, χ
2
(2, N= 96) = 8.18, p= .008,
Cramer’sV= .29. Table 3 shows that participants of the same
ethnicity as the perpetrator (i.e. White) were more likely to
make a correct identification and less likely to incorrectly
reject the lineup than participants of a different ethnicity.
There was also significant effect of participant ethnicity on
overall accuracy, χ
2
(1, N= 192) = 7.20, p= .011, Cramer’s
V= .19, with participants of the same ethnicity performing
significantly better (72% accurate) than participants of
another ethnicity (53% accurate). Thus, our data provide
some evidence for own-ethnicity bias.
Discussion
Experiment 1 replicated previous findings regarding the
benefits of eye-closure for recall of witnessed events. In free
recall, eye-closure helped participants to retrieve more
correct details about the event, while leaving incorrect and
subjective details unaffected. In cued recall, eye-closure
helped participants to provide more precise-correct re-
sponses and fewer ‘don’t know’responses, while leaving
Table 2. The effect of interview condition on the number of correct identifications (of the target), foil identifications (of a known innocent
lineup member), and no identifications (i.e. saying the target is not present) for target-present lineups, and on the number of false identifica-
tions (of the target replacement), foil identifications, and no identifications for target-absent lineups in Experiment 1
Condition
Eyes open Eyes closed Total
N%N%N%
Target-present
Correct identification 20 42% 26 54% 46 48%
Foil identification 2 4% 1 2% 33%
No identification 26 54% 21 44% 47 49%
Target-absent
False identification 3 6% 5 10% 88%
Foil identification 8 17% 6 13% 14 15%
No identification 37 77% 37 77% 74 77%
174 A. Vredeveldt et al.
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 29: 169–180 (2015)
imprecise-correct and incorrect responses unaffected. The
modality of encoded information did not interact signifi-
cantly with interview condition (i.e. eye-closure was roughly
equally effective for recall of visual and auditory details).
These findings suggest that, in the present study, eye-closure
had a general rather than a modality-specific effect on recall
performance (see Perfect et al., 2011; Vredeveldt et al.,
2011; Vredeveldt & Perfect, 2014, for more information on
the modality issue).
The primary purpose of Experiment 1, however, was to
investigate the effect of eye-closure during rehearsal of the
perpetrator’s face on subsequent lineup identification
performance. We found no significant benefits of eye-closure
for identification accuracy, despite the fact that our sample
size would have enabled us to detect a medium-sized effect
(d= 0.40). However, because recall and recognition are
distinct cognitive processes measured on different scales
(see e.g. Smith, Glenberg, & Bjork, 1978; Tulving, 1982),
we cannot assume that the medium to large effect size found
for event recall extends to face recognition. Dichotomous
and categorical scales to assess recognition accuracy are
less sensitive to detect differences between conditions than
continuous scales used for recall performance. That is,
although eye-closure may help witnesses remember 18%
additional information about an event (i.e. the increase
from 34 to 40 details in free recall in Experiment 1), the
eye-closure effect may only rarely be sufficiently strong
to turn an incorrect identification decision into a correct
decision. Hence, we might expect a smaller effect size
for recognition measures than for recall measures. There-
fore, we increased statistical power in Experiment 2,
allowing us to detect even small differences between
conditions, if they existed.
EXPERIMENT 2
In Experiment 2, we explored the effect of eye-closure
during mental rehearsal in a face recognition paradigm. In
this paradigm, each participant provides multiple recognition
decisions, allowing for the application of signal detection
analytic methods to participant performance, with the
particular benefit of estimating both discrimination perfor-
mance and response criterion. In addition, we added a
control condition in which participants did not rehearse the
face prior to recognition, to assess the effect of mental
rehearsal per se. In line with previous research (e.g. Graefe
& Watkins, 1980; Sporer, 1988), we predicted that mental
rehearsal of the face would improve participants’ability to
discriminate between old and new faces on a subsequent
recognition test. We also predicted that eye-closure during
mental rehearsal would increase its effectiveness, through
facilitating concentration (e.g. Glenberg et al., 1998) and
visualization (e.g. Wais et al., 2010). In addition, extrapolating
from findings that eye-closure during recall reduces overcon-
fidence in recall memory (Vredeveldt & Sauer, 2014), we
hypothesized that eye-closure would make participants more
conservative in their decisions.
In Experiment 1, we found that White participants were
better at identifying the White book thief from the lineup
compared to participants of a different ethnicity. However,
because the experimental design did not include targets with
another ethnicity, it is difficult to draw conclusions about
own-ethnicity bias based on those data. To explore own-
ethnicity bias in more detail, we included both White and
Black target faces in Experiment 2.
Method
Power calculation
We decided on a sample size that would allow us to detect
even a small effect (d= 0.13 with power = .80), namely,
960 decisions per condition.
Participants
We recruited 144 students (38 male) with a mean age of
20.08 (SD = 2.14) from the University of Cape Town, who
each contributed 20 recognition decisions. Our sample
comprised of 48 Black, 48 White, and 48 Coloured/Indian
participants (henceforth referred to as ‘Coloured’).
Design
Experimental condition (control, eyes-open, eyes-closed)
and participant ethnicity (Black, White, or Coloured) were
manipulated between-subjects, and face ethnicity (Black or
White) was manipulated within-subjects. A counterbalanced
design was used, in which pair member presented during
encoding (A or B; see Materials section), and type of photo
Table 3. The effect of participant ethnicity on the number of correct identifications (of the target), foil identifications (of a known innocent
lineup member), and no identifications (i.e. saying the target is not present) for target-present lineups, and on the number of false identifications
(of the target replacement), foil identifications, and no identifications for target-absent lineups in Experiment 1
Participant ethnicity
Same as perpetrator Different from perpetrator Total
N%N%N%
Target-present
Correct identification 30 63% 16 33% 46 48%
Foil identification 1 2% 2 4% 33%
No identification 17 35% 30 63% 47 49%
Target-absent
False identification 3 6% 5 10% 88%
Foil identification 6 13% 8 17% 14 15%
No identification 39 81% 35 73% 74 77%
Eye-closure and face recognition 175
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 29: 169–180 (2015)
presented during encoding (frontal or profile) were included
as within-subjects sampling variables (see Bruce, 1982, on
the importance of changing the perspective of faces between
presentation and test). Because none of the sampling
variables interacted with experimental condition, they are
not discussed further.
Materials
Photographs of 20 White males and 20 Black males were
selected from databases of 371 and 398 photographs, respec-
tively. The photographs were organized into pairs of similar-
looking males, designated as person A and person B (i.e. 10
Black pairs and 10 White pairs). During encoding, partici-
pants were presented with person A on ten trials and with
person B on the other ten, in random order. To ensure that
the task involved person recognition rather than image
recognition, there were two versions of each face—one
frontal and one profile depiction (cf. Bruce, 1982). If partic-
ipants saw a frontal depiction during encoding, they would
see a profile depiction during recognition, and vice versa.
None of the selected males had facial hair, necklaces, or head
coverings. All wore a plain dark-red T-shirt.
Procedure
The experiment consisted of 20 trials and was administered
through E-Prime 2.0 (Psychology Software Tools,
Pittsburgh, PA). To keep expectations consistent across
trials, participants were informed prior to participation that
the study concerned memory for faces. Prior to participation,
participants provided informed consent. At the start of each
trial, participants were warned that they would see a face for
less than a second on the next screen, and asked to pay close
attention. After pressing a key, they saw a fixation cross for
1 s, followed by a photograph of a face for 750 ms (either
Person A or Person B of each pair). They then completed
one of 20 filler tasks (appearing in random order; e.g. mathe-
matical problems, anagrams, visual search tasks, and general
knowledge questions). After 90 s, participants in the eyes-
open and eyes-closed rehearsal conditions were asked to
‘think about the face you saw’for 30 s, while participants in
the control condition continued working on the filler task.
Participants in the eyes-open condition were instructed to
keep looking at the fixation cross on the screen while thinking
about the face, whereas participants in the eyes-closed
condition were instructed to keep their eyes closed. Two
minutes after encoding the face, all participants were
presented with a yes-no recognition task. Participants heard
the following spoken instructions (delivered via headphones):
‘You will now see another photo of a face. Please indicate
whether this is the same person you saw a few minutes
ago’. The face appeared on the screen for as long as it took
participants to make their decision, via key press. On ten
trials, participants were presented with the face they saw
during encoding, and on ten other trials, they were presented
with the face of the other pair member. Finally, participants
rated their confidence in their decision on a scale of 0% (not
confident at all) to 100% (extremely confident). The order of
photos in the 20 trials was randomized.
Results
Accuracy
A 3 (Condition: control, eyes-open, eyes-closed) × 3 (Participant
Ethnicity: Black, White, Coloured) × 2 (Face Ethnicity: Black,
White) mixed ANOVA was conducted on the proportion of
responses that were correct (i.e. accuracy rate). There were
no differences between conditions (F<1; see Table 4a). Thus,
Table 4. Means (M) and standard deviations (SD) for the effects of experimental condition, participant ethnicity, and face ethnicity on face
recognition performance in Experiment 2. Panel (a) shows accuracy rate, panel (b) shows discrimination accuracy d′, and panel (c) shows
response criterion c
Black participants White participants Coloured participants Total
Black faces White faces Black faces White faces Black faces White faces
M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD
(a) Accuracy rate
Condition
Control .83 .21 .80 .17 .79 .22 .77 .19 .77 .22 .82 .21 .79 .10
Rehearsal .82 .17 .79 .18 .71 .24 .82 .16 .81 .23 .80 .15 .79 .10
Eye-closure .87 .14 .80 .17 .62 .30 .83 .18 .83 .20 .72 .19 .79 .10
Total .84 .17 .80 .17 .71 .26 .81 .17 .80 .21 .78 .19 .79 .10
(b) Discrimination accuracy d′
Condition
Control 2.60 1.51 2.18 1.37 2.44 1.64 2.13 1.59 2.15 1.60 2.48 1.85 1.88 0.72
Rehearsal 2.45 1.43 2.36 1.33 1.65 1.96 2.10 1.63 2.63 1.53 2.14 1.49 1.95 0.81
Eye-closure 3.02 0.95 2.21 1.53 0.87 2.48 2.47 1.50 2.50 1.55 1.84 1.42 1.89 0.76
Total 2.69 1.32 2.25 1.39 1.67 2.10 2.23 1.55 2.41 1.54 2.15 1.58 1.91 0.76
(c) Response criterion c
Condition
Control 0.05 0.60 0.11 0.62 0.04 0.80 0.04 0.88 0.03 0.61 0.09 0.74 0.03 0.52
Rehearsal 0.08 0.94 0.30 0.89 0.50 1.02 0.42 0.89 0.27 0.87 0.13 0.87 0.19 0.57
Eye-closure 0.14 0.65 0.04 0.71 0.16 0.99 0.20 0.88 0.13 0.73 0.31 0.92 0.18 0.55
Total 0.00 0.74 0.15 0.74 0.24 0.94 0.22 0.88 0.14 0.73 0.18 0.83 0.13 0.55
176 A. Vredeveldt et al.
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 29: 169–180 (2015)
contrary to our hypotheses, mental rehearsal with or without
eye-closure did not improve accuracy rate. There were also
no significant main effects of participant ethnicity, F
(2, 135)
=2.28,p= .11, or face ethnicity (F<1), but there was a signif-
icant interaction between the two, F
(2, 135)
=3.38, p=.037,
η
2
= .05, revealing an asymmetrical own-ethnicity bias.
Bonferroni-adjusted simple effects analyses showed that
White participants were significantly better at recognising
White faces than Black faces, F
(1, 135)
=5.61, p=.019,
η
2
= .04, whereas Black participants, F
(1, 135)
=1.11, p= .30,
and Coloured participants (F<1) performed equally well for
both types of faces (see Table 4a). There were no other signif-
icant interactions (all ps>.10).
Next, we explored whether mean accuracy between condi-
tions was statistically equivalent, though again without sufficient
theoretical grounds to determine the minimum inconse-
quential difference prior to analysis. Based on the data
obtained in Experiment 2, however, the means for all
pairwise comparisons between the three conditions would
be considered statistically equivalent if a difference of
5% accuracy or less was considered inconsequential.
This finding will be discussed in more detail in the
General Discussion.
Signal detection analysis
Hits and false alarms were combined to calculate discrimina-
tion accuracy d′and response criterion c. Prior to calculation,
proportions of 0 and 1 were converted to 1/(2 N) =.025 and
1-1/(2N)=.975,respectively.A3x3x2mixedANOVA
on d′revealed no significant differences between conditions
(F<1), and no other significant main effects or interactions
(all ps>.07). Thus, as shown in Table 4b, mental rehearsal
with or without eye-closure did not improve discrimination
accuracy. Table 4c shows that participants in the rehearsal
and eye-closure conditions were slightly more conservative
in their decisions (i.e. higher positive values) than participants
in the control condition, but a corresponding ANOVA on c
revealed no significant effect of condition (F<1), and no other
significant effects (all ps>.06). Thus, contrary to our
hypothesis, eye-closure did not significantly affect partici-
pants’response criterion.
Discussion
In Experiment 2, we assessed the effects of mental rehearsal
with or without eye-closure on face recognition performance,
as compared to a control condition in which participants were
prevented from rehearsing the face. Contrary to our predic-
tions, mental rehearsal prior to recognition did not improve
participants’ability to discriminate between old and new faces,
and eye-closure did not significantly enhance the effectiveness
of instructed mental rehearsal. This will be addressed in the
General Discussion.
In Experiment 2, we systematically varied the ethnicity of
the target faces, to further explore own-ethnicity bias. We
found an asymmetrical bias that affected White participants
but not Black or Coloured participants. Comprehensive
discussion of this finding is outside of the scope of the
current paper, but it is worth noting that similar asymmetrical
own-ethnicity biases have been reported in previous research
(e.g. Nakabayashi et al., 2014; Walker & Hewstone, 2006;
Wright, Boyd, & Tredoux, 2003). We refer the interested
reader to Chiroro et al. (2008) for a more detailed discussion.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
The present research examined whether eye-closure during
mental rehearsal of a face could improve subsequent facial
identification performance. In Experiment 1, we replicated
the benefits of eye-closure for event recall, but eye-closure
during mental rehearsal of a face did not significantly help
participants to identify the perpetrator from a subsequent
lineup (or reject the lineup if the perpetrator was not present).
In Experiment 2, we used a face recognition paradigm,
enabling us to detect even small differences between
conditions. Despite this, we found no significant effects of
mental rehearsal with or without eye-closure on overall
accuracy rate, discrimination accuracy (d′), or response
criterion (c). Thus, the findings suggest that eye-closure
improves recall of events, but not face recognition.
Because absence of evidence is not the same as evidence
of absence, we also explored statistical equivalence between
conditions (Tryon, 2001; Tryon & Lewis, 2008). In Experi-
ment 1, we found that mean accuracy in the eyes-open and
eyes-closed condition could only be considered statistically
equivalent under the assumption that 21% accuracy is an in-
consequential difference. If one considers this assumption to
be unreasonable (as we do), then the difference between con-
ditions in Experiment 1 was neither statistically significant
nor statistically equivalent. To surpass this state of statistical
indeterminacy, we explored the phenomenon further in a
second study with more statistical power. In Experiment 2,
the assumed minimal inconsequential difference for statisti-
cal equivalence decreased to 5% accuracy. Of course, it is
difficult to determine whether 5% accuracy, or 1 out of 20
decisions, is an inconsequential difference. A parallel can
be drawn with the problem of how many guilty persons to
set free before one innocent person is convicted; the most
well-known proposed ratio is 10 to 1 (Blackstone, 1769),
but opinions vary widely (Volokh, 1997). Ultimately, it is up
to policy makers to decide what constitutes an inconsequential
difference. Nevertheless, policy makers need relevant empir-
ical data to make informed decisions (cf. Clark, 2012). Based
on our second study with high power, we can conclude that
eye-closure does not affect subsequent face recognition, pro-
vided that we believe that a 5% accuracy difference is of min-
imal practical consequence.
The null findings for face recognition performance in the
present studies correspond with previous failures to replicate
the benefits of other memory-enhancing techniques in facial
identification contexts. For example, although some studies
have found that mental context reinstatement—a procedure
in which witnesses are encouraged to mentally place them-
selves back into the context of the crime—improves lineup
identification accuracy (Cutler, Penrod, & Martens, 1987;
Gibling & Davies, 1988; Krafka & Penrod, 1985; Malpass
& Devine, 1981; see also Shapiro & Penrod, 1986), others
have failed to replicate these benefits (Cutler, Penrod,
O’Rourke, & Martens, 1986; Davies & Milne, 1985; Searcy,
Eye-closure and face recognition 177
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 29: 169–180 (2015)
Bartlett, Memon, & Swanson, 2001; Smith & Vela, 1992;
Sporer, 1996). The most frequently cited explanation for
the absence of effects of memory-enhancing techniques on
recognition tasks is the outshining hypothesis (Smith, 1988;
Smith & Vela, 1992). Memory-enhancing techniques
typically improve recall performance by providing retrieval
cues to the witness. In recognition tasks, however, the
witness is presented with the most effective retrieval cue
possible, namely, a copy of the to-be-remembered stimulus
(i.e. the perpetrator’s face). Therefore, any retrieval cues
provided by the memory-enhancing technique are outshone
by the presence of this potent retrieval cue. In other words,
the eye-closure technique should be most effective when
there are few other cues to prompt the witness’s memory
(cf. Fisher & Schreiber, 2009).
One potentially suitable context in which to explore the
outshining hypothesis in further detail is that of facial com-
posite construction. Because composite construction involves
a combination of recall processes (when describing the face)
and recognition processes (when selecting facial features from
a book or computer system), it is ideally situated to explore
differences between recall and recognition tasks. Other
memory-enhancing techniques, such as mental and physical
context reinstatement (Davies & Milne, 1985) and the holistic
Cognitive Interview (Frowd, Bruce, Smith, & Hancock,
2008), have been found to improve the quality of facial
composites. Future research should investigate whether eye-
closure also affects facial composite construction, and if so,
under what conditions. For example, the timing of instructed
eye-closure could be varied to explore during which phase it
is most effective: (i) before describing the face; (ii) during
description of the face; (iii) before selecting facial features;
(iv) during selection of facial features (i.e. before presentation
of each feature); or (v) before viewing and adjusting the
whole-face image. This type of research would provide
valuable insights into eye-closure’s potential effectiveness in
other applied contexts in the legal domain.
In the present research, we were predominantly concerned
with applied issues surrounding facial identification, and
further research is required to learn more about the cognitive
underpinnings of eye-closure’s effects on recall and recogni-
tion. Ideas for future research include investigating the role
of the to-be-recognized stimuli and the degree of environ-
mental distraction. First, we know from previous research
that faces are a special type of visual stimulus; they activate
a specific set of brain regions (Haxby, Hoffman, & Gobbini,
2000) and appear to rely on holistic processing to a greater
degree than other objects do (Tanaka & Farah, 1993; Wilford
& Wells, 2010). Therefore, it remains to be seen whether the
present findings extend to recognition of other potentially
relevant visual stimuli, such as images of the suspect’s car.
Second, because the effectiveness of eye-closure may
depend on the level of distractions in the environment
(e.g. Perfect et al., 2011; Vredeveldt et al., 2011), future
studies should manipulate the level of visual and auditory
distractions experienced by witnesses during the rehearsal
period prior to face recognition.
We conclude that eye-closure has consistent benefits for
witnesses’recall of events, but does not improve recognition
of the perpetrator. It is important that this finding is entered
into the public record. Given that one of the main questions
in eyewitness contexts involves person identity, we ought to
investigate why interventions that promote mental imagery
(such as eye-closure, mental context reinstatement, and the
Cognitive Interview) consistently improve event recall but
do not consistently improve face recognition. To begin
solving this puzzle, we need to know more about the condi-
tions in which these interventions do and do not work. In
the present research, we used both a naturalistic study
(i.e. lineup identification after a witnessed theft) and a
laboratory study that had high statistical power to detect an
effect (i.e. face recognition). In both of these studies, eye-
closure during mental rehearsal of a face did not significantly
affect subsequent recognition performance. Of course, this
finding does not detract from the technique’s usefulness in
witness interviewing. Accumulating evidence from laboratory
studies in various settings (e.g. Perfect et al., 2008; Vredeveldt
et al., 2014; Wagstaff et al., 2004) suggests that witnesses
remember more about events if they close their eyes during
recall. Furthermore, field research with witnesses of serious
crimes suggests that eye-closure can improve the forensic
relevance of information provided by witnesses in police
interviews (Vredeveldt et al., 2014). The eye-closure
technique is a simple and time-efficient tool that could be
implemented relatively easily. Although eye-closure may not
help witnesses to identify the perpetrator, it will likely help
them to remember additional information about the event,
which could provide important new leads for investigations.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research was supported by an AW Mellon postdoctoral
fellowship awarded to Annelies Vredeveldt. We would like to
thank Cheneal Puljevićfor her assistance with data collection.
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