Searching for the sequential line-up advantage: a distinctiveness explanation.

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Forensic Psychology
• Cognitive Psychology

Background:

• The sequential lineup procedure is theorized to improve eyewitness identification accuracy.
• Previous research suggests a potential advantage for sequential lineups, but its robustness and moderating factors require further investigation.
• Factors such as lineup fairness and suspect position may influence the sequential advantage.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the robustness of the sequential lineup advantage.
• To examine the moderating roles of lineup fairness, suspect position, and target distinctiveness.
• To test the process-based explanation of the sequential lineup advantage.

Main Methods:

• Two experiments were conducted manipulating lineup fairness, suspect position, and target distinctiveness.
• Participants viewed sequential lineups, and their identification accuracy was recorded.
• Remember-Know judgments were collected to assess memory processes.

Main Results:

• A sequential lineup advantage was observed exclusively when the target individual was distinctive.
• This advantage was consistent across both biased and fair lineups.
• Remember-Know results indicated a greater reliance on a recall-to-reject strategy in target-absent sequential lineups.

Conclusions:

• The findings support the hypothesis that distinctive target encoding enhances the sequential lineup advantage.
• The results provide empirical support for the recall-to-reject strategy as an explanation for the sequential advantage.
• No consistent effects of suspect position were found, possibly due to the experimental paradigm used.