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Updated: Jul 15, 2026

Holistic Facial Composite Creation and Subsequent Video Line-up Eyewitness Identification Paradigm
Published on: December 24, 2015
Regularities in eyewitness identification
Steven E Clark1, Ryan T Howell, Sherrie L Davey
1Psychology Department, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521, USA. clark@ucr.edu
Abstract:
What do eyewitness identification experiments typically show? We address this question through a meta-analysis of 94 comparisons between target-present and target-absent lineups. The analyses showed that: (a) correct identifications and correct-nonidentifications were uncorrelated, (b) suspect identifications were more diagnostic with respect to the suspect's guilt or innocence than any other response, (c) nonidentifications were diagnostic of the suspect's innocence, (d) the diagnosticity of foil identifications depended on lineup composition, and (e) don't know responses were nondiagnostic with respect to guilt or innocence. Results of diagnosticity analyses for simultaneous and sequential lineups varied for full-sample versus direct-comparison analyses. Diagnosticity patterns also varied as a function of lineup composition. Theoretical, forensic, and legal implications are discussed.
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