A Study On Lineup Influence On Eyewitness Identification

Eyewitness Testimony is one of the important evidence against the accused in the judicial practice. The trial of the case is determined, to a large extent, by the accuracy of the eyewitness testimony. Eyewitness testimony, mainly refers to a statement of the case relevant to the scene which offered by witness to parties and judiciary in the litigation process. Eyewitness identification of criminal suspects is one of the main contents of statements. From previous studies, we found that the factors of the accuracy of included estimated variables and system variables, which influenced eyewitness identification, Estimated variable is not the main object of psychological study as a uncontrolled variables in judicial system, but the presentation of the queue, as a system variables controlled by judicial system, is lack of related study. On the basis of eyewitness literature,one experiment was conducted to analysis the influence of eyewitness identification by the presentation of the queue.The experiment was designed as 2(gender)×2(culprit-present versus culprit-absent lineups)×2(simultaneous versus sequential presentation), with 140 participants in it, in order to discussed the influence of the queue presentation to the eyewitness testimony. The main results were:(1) With the correct identifications and correct rejections as a dependent variable, the gender, culprit-present versus culprit-absent lineups and simultaneous versus sequential presentation as the independent variables, the main effect of them is not significant.(2) With the correct identifications and correct rejections as a dependent variable, the gender and the culprit-present versus culprit-absent lineups as the independent variables, the interaction effect between the gender and culprit-present versus culprit-absent lineups reached a significant level(F^1,132=11.245,p<0.01). The identification of female subject reached a significant level of the culprit-present versus culprit-absent lineups(F^1,132=14.060,p<0.01). Results showed that identification of culprit-present lineups occurred a higher rate than culprit-absent lineups.(3) With the correct identifications and correct rejections as a dependent variable, the gender and simultaneous versus sequential presentation as the independent variables, the interaction effect between the gender and simultaneous versus sequential presentation reached a significant level(F^1,132=7.574,p<0.05). The identification of female subject reached a significant level of simultaneous versus sequential presentation(F^1,132=9.43,p<0.01). Results showed that identification of simultaneous occurred a higher rate than sequential presentation.(4) With the correct identifications and correct rejections as a dependent variable, the culprit-present versus culprit-absent lineups and simultaneous versus sequential presentation as the independent variables, the interaction effect between the culprit-present versus culprit-absent lineups and simultaneous versus sequential presentation reached a significant leve(F^1,132=8.118,p<0.01). Results showed that identification of target from culprit-present lineups occurred a higher rate from simultaneous than from sequential lineups(F^1,132=1.940,p=0.060); correct rejection rates form culprit-absent were significantly higher form sequential than simultaneous lineups(F^1,132=6.89,p<0.01).(5) With the correct identifications and correct rejections as a dependent variable, the gender, the culprit-present versus culprit-absent lineups and simultaneous versus sequential presentation as the independent variables, the interaction effect of them did not reach a significant level.