To investigate eyewitness recall and ability to identify a target person from a photographic line-up in a field experiment
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How many participants were there?
590
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What was the sampling method?
Opportunity
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Who were they approached by?
A female target
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What did she ask them?
For help looking for a lost piece of jewellery or for directions
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How long after were they approached by a female researcher?
2 minutes
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What did the researcher say that she wanted them to take part in?
An study about person perception and memory
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How many questions were there in the recall test?
16
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What kind of things were asked about?
Physical characteristics and clothing of the target
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How many photographs were there in the line-up?
6
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What was the condition like for testing the effect of preparation?
Some participants were told by the female target herself that they would need to recall later on, some weren't
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What was the condition like for testing the effect of retention time span?
Some participants were required to recall immediately whereas some recalled 4 hours later
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What was the condition like for testing the effect of changing the line-up?
Some were told that the target may or may not be in the line up whereas some were told that she was in there
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How were participants allocated to these different conditions?
Randomly
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How many psychology undergraduates did Yarmey ask prior to the experiment for their prediction?
370
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Which physical and clothing characteristic was most recalled?
Height and Top clothing
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How many percentage for the two mentioned before?
Height - 60% and top clothing - 60%
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What was worst recalled of physical and clothing characteristics?
Eye colour and Footwear
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What were the predictions like from the undergraduates?
They overestimated the recall for hair colour, jewellery and footwear, also the ability to identify target. They underestimated the recall of age
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Did preparation help for a recall test?
This is only true for physical and clothing characteristics but not photograph identification
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Was there a difference whether recall was immediate or after a 4 hour delay?
Not really; however witnesses seemed to recall hair colour and footwear better after the delay
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What was the correct identification rate for the photo line-up when the target was present?
49%
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What was the rejection rate for the photo line-up when the target wasn't present?
62%
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What were the conclusions?
Inexplicably, witness preparation didn't improve witness identification and also the students significantly overestimated their ability to do so. This overestimation could explain why jurors put great faith in witness testimonies.
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