Does exposure to facial composites damage eyewitness memory? A comprehensive review

Abstract

Eyewitnesses often create face likenesses, which are published in the hope that potential suspects will be reported to the police. Witnesses exposed to another witness's composite, however, may be positively or negatively influenced by such composites. A good likeness may facilitate identification, but a bad likeness that resembles an innocent suspect may lead to a misidentification (“mix‐up”). We offer a theoretical review, and comprehensively summarize extant studies descriptively because most studies did not report enough statistical details to warrant a formal meta‐analysis. Some studies showed negative exposure effects, particularly when the innocent suspect and composite shared misleading features. Studies that exposed witnesses to “good” composites reported positive or no effects on lineup performance, and some highly powered studies also showed no effect. We outline suggestions for further investigations under ecologically valid conditions. We also make recommendations for investigative practice, and the evaluation of identification evidence by fact finders or courts.

Full text

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Does exposure to facial composites damage eyewitness
memory? A comprehensive review
Siegfried L. Sporer
1
| Colin G. Tredoux
2,3
| Annelies Vredeveldt
4
|
Kate Kempen
2
| Alicia Nortje
2
1
Department of Psychology and Sports
Science, University of Giessen, Giessen,
Germany
2
Department of Psychology, University of
Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
3
CLLE, Université de Toulouse, CNRS, UT2J,
Toulouse, France
4
Department of Criminal Law and Criminology,
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The
Netherlands
Correspondence
Siegfried L. Sporer, Department of Psychology,
University of Giessen, Giessen, Germany.
Email: siegfried.l.sporer@psy.jlug.de
Funding information
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
(Sp272/9-1)
Summary
Eyewitnesses often create face likenesses, which are published in the hope that
potential suspects will be reported to the police. Witnesses exposed to another
witness's composite, however, may be positively or negatively influenced by such
composites. A good likeness may facilitate identification, but a bad likeness that
resembles an innocent suspect may lead to a misidentification (“mix-up”). We offer a
theoretical review, and comprehensively summarize extant studies descriptively
because most studies did not report enough statistical details to warrant a formal
meta-analysis. Some studies showed negative exposure effects, particularly when the
innocent suspect and composite shared misleading features. Studies that exposed
witnesses to “good”composites reported positive or no effects on lineup perfor-
mance, and some highly powered studies also showed no effect. We outline sugges-
tions for further investigations under ecologically valid conditions. We also make
recommendations for investigative practice, and the evaluation of identification evi-
dence by fact finders or courts.
KEYWORDS
eyewitness identification, eyewitness recall, face composites, misinformation effect
1|INTRODUCTION
Mistaken eyewitness identifications can have a major impact on crimi-
nal cases, and there is plenty of evidence that mistaken identifications
have been involved in wrongful convictions discovered through DNA
testing (Garrett, 2011; www.innocenceproject.org). One potential fac-
tor contributing to these misidentifications may be the production of
face composites as part of the police investigation. In cases in which
the identity of the perpetrator is at issue, the police may rely on eye-
witnesses to help produce a likeness (or “composite”) of the perpetra-
tor's facial appearance. By publishing the composite, police
investigators hope that a member of the public will recognize the per-
son depicted and report this to the police (Davies & Valentine, 2007;
Shepherd & Ellis, 1996). Face composites have been used by the
police across the globe for many decades, from the US to Europe and
Australia and many other countries, including Brazil, South Africa and
in former socialist and communist countries (Saraiva et al., 2018;
Schmidt & Tredoux, 2006; Shepherd & Ellis, 1996; Snetkow, Sinin, &
Delang, 1981).
Although face composites are commonly used by police, labora-
tory research indicates that composites often do not resemble the
perpetrator (Davies & Valentine, 2007; Frowd et al., 2005; Frowd
et al., 2005; Koehn & Fisher, 1997; Kovera, Penrod, Pappas, & Thill,
1997). However, Frowd, Valentine, and Davis (2015) summarize data
on new generation composite systems
1
and provide evidence that
resemblance between composites and targets may be improving.
Newer interviewing techniques developed specifically for face com-
posite construction may further improve composite accuracy (Skelton
et al., 2019; Fodarella et al., 2017; Fodarella, Kuivaniemi-Smith,
Gawrylowicz, & Frowd, 2015).
A facial composite constructed by a witness can affect later iden-
tification in at least two ways. First, the task of constructing a
Received: 18 December 2019 Revised: 3 June 2020 Accepted: 5 June 2020
DOI: 10.1002/acp.3705
1166 © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl Cognit Psychol. 2020;34:1166–1179.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/acp