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Active Exploration of Faces in Police Lineups Increases Discrimination Accuracy

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Abstract

Eyewitness identifications play a key role in the justice system, but eyewitnesses can make errors, often with profound consequences. We used findings from basic science and innovative technologies to develop and test whether a novel interactive lineup procedure, wherein witnesses can rotate and dynamically view the lineup faces from different angles, improves witness discrimination accuracy compared with a widely used procedure in laboratories and police forces around the world—the static frontal-pose photo lineup. No novel procedure has previously been shown to improve witness discrimination accuracy. In Experiment 1, participants (N = 220) identified culprits from sequentially presented interactive lineups or static frontal-pose photo lineups. In Experiment 2, participants (N = 8,507) identified culprits from interactive lineups that were either presented sequentially, simultaneously wherein the faces could be moved independently, or simultaneously wherein the faces moved jointly into the same angle. Sequential interactive lineups enhanced witness discrimination accuracy compared with static photo lineups, and simultaneous interactive lineups enhanced witness discrimination accuracy compared with sequential interactive lineups. These finding were true both when participants viewed suspects who were of the same or different ethnicity/race as themselves. Our findings exemplify how basic science can be used to address the important applied policy issue on how best to conduct a police lineup and reduce eyewitness errors.
Active Exploration of Faces in Police Lineups Increases Discrimination
Accuracy
Melissa F. Colloff
1
, Heather D. Flowe
1
, Harriet M. J. Smith
2
, Travis M. Seale-Carlisle
3
,
Christian A. Meissner
4
, James C. Rockey
5
, Babita Pande
6
, Pratibha Kujur
6
, Noorshama Parveen
6
,
Priyanka Chandel
6
, Margaret M. Singh
6
, Sraddha Pradhan
6
, and Arti Parganiha
6
1
Centre for Applied Psychology, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham
2
Division of Psychology, Nottingham Trent University
3
Wilson Center for Science and Justice, School of Law, Duke University
4
Department of Psychology, Iowa State University
5
Department of Economics, Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham
6
School of Studies in Life Sciences, Pt. Ravishankar Shukla University
Eyewitness identications play a key role in the justice system, but eyewitnesses can make
errors, often with profound consequences. We used ndings from basic science and innova-
tive technologies to develop and test whether a novel interactive lineup procedure, wherein
witnesses can rotate and dynamically view the lineup faces from different angles, improves
witness discrimination accuracy compared with a widely used procedure in laboratories and
police forces around the worldthe static frontal-pose photo lineup. No novel procedure
has previously been shown to improve witness discrimination accuracy. In Experiment 1,
participants (N= 220) identied culprits from sequentially presented interactive lineups or
static frontal-pose photo lineups. In Experiment 2, participants (N= 8,507) identied culprits
from interactive lineups that were either presented sequentially, simultaneously wherein the
faces could be moved independently, or simultaneously wherein the faces moved jointly into
the same angle. Sequential interactive lineups enhanced witness discrimination accuracy
compared with static photo lineups, and simultaneous interactive lineups enhanced witness
discrimination accuracy compared with sequential interactive lineups. These nding were
true both when participants viewed suspects who were of the same or different ethnicity/
race as themselves. Our ndings exemplify how basic science can be used to address the im-
portant applied policy issue on how best to conduct a police lineup and reduce eyewitness
errors.
Melissa F. Colloff https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6401-4872
Heather D. Flowe https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5343-5313
Harriet M. J. Smith https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2712-5527
Travis M. Seale-Carlisle https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4522-8549
Christian A. Meissner https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6094-5167
James C. Rockey https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2313-5544
Babita Pande https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0545-6002
Noorshama Parveen https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5366-5052
Arti Parganiha https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9764-5566
This work was supported by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation
Grant (to Heather D. Flowe and Christian A. Meissner). Sections of
these data were presented by Melissa F. Colloff at the International
Meeting of the Psychonomic Society (May 2018), Amsterdam, the
Netherlands, and at the Society for Applied Research in Memory and
Cognition (June 2019), Cape Cod, Massachusetts, United States. Our
data are available at https://osf.io/2x5tg/ (Experiment 1) and https://osf
.io/b8tvw/ (Experiment 2).
Melissa F. Colloff served as lead for data curation, formal analysis,
resources and writing original draft, contributed equally to writing review
and editing and served in a supporting role for methodology. Heather D. Flowe
served as lead for conceptualization, funding acquisition and methodology,
contributed equally to writing review and editing and served in a supporting
role for writing original draft. Harriet M. J. Smith contributed equally to
software and served in a supporting role for writing review and editing.
Travis M. Seale-Carlisle served in a supporting role for writing review and
editing. Christian A. Meissner contributed equally to writing review and
editing and served in a supporting role for methodology. James C. Rockey
served in a supporting role for writing review and editing. Babita
Pande served in a supporting role for writing review and editing. Pratibha
Kujur served in a supporting role for writing review and editing. Noorshama
Parveen served in a supporting role for writing review and editing. Priyanka
Chandel served in a supporting role for writing review and editing. Margaret
M. Singh served in a supporting role for writing review and editing. Sraddha
Pradhan served in a supporting role for writing review and editing. Arti
Parganiha served in a supporting role for writing review and editing. Babita
Pande, Pratibha Kujur, Noorsharma Parveen, Priyanka Chandel, Margarent
Singh, Sraddha Pradhan, and Arti Parganiha all also served in a supporting role
for data curation.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Melissa
F. Colloff, Centre for Applied Psychology, School of Psychology,
University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, United
Kingdom. Email: m.colloff@bham.ac.uk
196
American Psychologist
©2021 American Psychological Association
ISSN: 0003-066X https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000832
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
2022, Vol. 77, No. 2, 196–220
This article was published Online First November 18, 2021.
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