Doctoral Dissertation Research: Stability and Trait-based Predictors of Eyewitness Performance

博士论文研究：目击者表现的稳定性和基于特征的预测因子

• 批准号: 1228576
• 负责人: Brian Bornstein
• 金额: $ 1.75万
• 依托单位: University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-09-01 至 2015-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1228576&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Stability; Trait

Are witnesses who are accurate at identifying a suspect?s face in a lineup consistently accurate at identifying suspects or in saying what happened during a crime? Given that erroneous eyewitness testimony contributes to wrongful convictions and that jurors give great weight to eyewitness testimony, knowing whether witness accuracy is stable would be helpful. Traditional eyewitness research does not answer these questions, as most studies examine eyewitness memory for only a single witnessed event. Thus, this project seeks to investigate: (1) the stability of witness memory performance, both within and across witness tasks (e.g., lineups, witness reports of criminal events, and resistance to misinformation) and (2) the strength of a number of individual difference variables, including personality and cognitive traits, in predicting eyewitness performance. The project will examine the stability of witness accuracy both within and across witness accuracy tasks (lineup identification accuracy; accurate memory of the events; and resistance to misleading post-event information about the events) for five brief witnessed events across multiple study sessions. The use of repeated witness tasks for five separate witness events will permit a more sensitive, more generalizable measure of witness accuracy than in prior research.The stability of witness accuracy has important broader impacts for decision makers (e.g., jurors, prosecutors, police officers, etc.) in the criminal justice system in evaluating the probable accuracy of witness statements or conflicting statements of different witnesses, given that real world witnesses need to be accurate in both their identifications and their event reports regarding a crime. Further, the proposed procedure may provide a new paradigm for investigating witness accuracy. The project will also support the training of a graduate student and expose undergraduate research assistants to the research process.

能够准确识别嫌疑人脸部的证人在识别犯罪嫌疑人或讲述犯罪过程中发生的事情方面是否始终准确？鉴于错误的目击证人证词会导致错误定罪，而且陪审员非常重视目击证人的证词，了解证人的准确性是否稳定将会有所帮助。传统的目击者研究无法回答这些问题，因为大多数研究仅检查目击者对单个目击事件的记忆。因此，该项目旨在调查：(1) 证人记忆表现的稳定性，无论是在证人任务内部还是跨证人任务（例如，阵容、犯罪事件的证人报告以及对错误信息的抵抗力），以及 (2) 一些证人记忆表现的强度预测目击者表现的个体差异变量，包括个性和认知特征。该项目将检查多个研究会议中五个简短目击事件的目击者准确性任务（阵容识别准确性；事件的准确记忆；以及对有关事件的误导性事后信息的抵抗力）内和跨目击者准确性的稳定性。与之前的研究相比，对五个单独的证人事件使用重复的证人任务将允许对证人准确性进行更敏感、更普遍的衡量。证人准确性的稳定性对决策者（例如陪审员、检察官、警察、等）在刑事司法系统中评估证人证词或不同证人的相互矛盾的证词的可能准确性，因为现实世界的证人需要在其身份和有关犯罪的事件报告中保持准确。此外，拟议的程序可能为调查证人准确性提供新的范例。该项目还将支持研究生的培训，并使本科生研究助理参与研究过程。