The impact of sequential lineups on unconscious transference: does knowing the number of photos in the lineup matter?

Unconscious transference occurs when a witness misidentifies a familiar but innocent person from a lineup. In Ross, Atkinson, Rosenberg, Pica, and Pozullo (2014), the use of a sequential lineup procedure, in which faces are presented one at a time, drastically reduced the unconscious transference error, but at the cost of also reducing the rate of correct identifications. However, in that study, the participants were not told how many faces they would view in the sequential lineup. In the present study, participants viewed a video of a staged crime that did or did not contain a bystander who looked similar to the thief, then subsequently viewed a lineup with either the thief or the bystander in it. Knowing the correct number of faces to be seen reinstated the unconscious transference effect with no corresponding increase in the rate of correct identifications. Other findings and policy implications are discussed.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Author dc:creator

• Atkinson, Dominick J.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Ross, David F.
• Warren, Amye; O'Leary, Brian J.; Elwell, Jeffery; Walker, Randy
• College of Arts and Sciences

• Transference (Psychology)
• Eyewitness identification
• Recollection (Psychology)
• Visual perception

Licence

• https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en

Language dc:language

English, eng

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholar.utc.edu/theses/124

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholar.utc.edu:theses-1122