Adult Eyewitness Testimony: Current Trends and Developments

Adult Eyewitness Testimony: Current Trends and Developments provides an overview of empirical research on eyewitness testimony and identification accuracy, covering both theory and application. The volume is organized to address three important issues. First, what are the cognitive, social and physical factors that influence the accuracy of eyewitness reports? Second, how should lineups be constructed and verbal testimony be taken to improve the chances of obtaining accurate information? And third, whose testimony should be believed? Are there differences between accurate and inaccurate witnesses, and can jurors make such a distinction? Adult Eyewitness Testimony: Current Trends and Developments is crucial reading for memory researchers, as well as police officers, judges, lawyers and other members of the judicial system.

• Suitable as reading on undergraduate or graduate courses in cognitive psychology and criminal justice • Of interest to all members of the judicial system who are involved in criminal court trials

List of contributors; Preface; Part I. Cognitive, Physical and Social Processes and Factors Influencing Eyewitness Recall and Identification: 1. Reports of suggested memories: do people truly believe them? Kenneth R. Weingardt, H. Kelly Toland and Elizabeth F. Loftus; 2. Memory source monitoring and eyewitness testimony D. Stephen Lindsay; 3. Understanding bystander misidentifications: the role of familiarity and contextual knowledge J. Don Read; 4. Unconscious transference and lineup identification: toward a memory blending approach David F. Ross, Stephen J. Ceci, David Dunning and Michael P. Toglia; 5. Earwitness evidence: memory for a perpetrator’s voice A. Daniel Yarmey; 6. Whole body information: its relevance to eyewitnesses Malcolm D. MacLeod, Jason N. Frowley and John W. Shepherd; 7. Actual victims and witnesses to robbery and fraud: an archival analysis Patricia A. Tollestrup, John W. Turtle and John C. Yuille; Part II. Lineup Construction and Collection of Testimony: 8. Conceptual, practical and empirical issues associated with eyewitness identification test media Brian L. Cutler, Garrett L. Berman, Steven Penrod and Ronald P. Fisher; 9. Biased lineups: where do they come from? R. C. L. Lindsay; 10. Evaluating the fairness of lineups John C. Brigham and Jeffrey E. Pfeifer; 11. Recommendations for properly conducted lineup identification tasks Gary L. Wells, Eric P. Seelau, Sheila M. Rydell and C. A. Elizabeth Luus; 12. Improving eyewitness testimony with the Cognitive Interview Ronald P. Fisher, Michelle R. McCauley and R. Edward Geiselman; Part III. Whom to Believe? Distinguishing Accurate from Inaccurate Eyewitnesses: 13. Distinguishing accurate from inaccurate eyewitness identifications: a reality monitoring approach Lisa Beth Stern and David Dunning; 14. Decision times and eyewitness identification accuracy in simultaneous and sequential lineups Siegfried Ludwig Sporer; 15. Individual differences in personality and eyewitness identification Harmon Hosch; 16. Eyewitness identification confidence C. A. Elizabeth Luus and Gary L. Wells; 17. Expectations of eyewitness performance: jurors’ verdicts do not follow from their beliefs R. C. L. Lindsay; 18. The appraisal of eyewitness testimony Michael R. Leippe; Name index; Subject index.