The role of race in lineup construction

The role of race in lineup construction has been largely overlooked in eyewitness research. The current work addresses this gap and introduces an innovative approach for the evaluation of lineup properties by making use of multidimensional scaling methods. In Study 1, self-identified Black and White participants assessed the similarity between face pairs from racially homogeneous sets of Black and White faces, which served as suspects and potential fillers in Study 2. Based on these ratings, we derived face spaces for same-race and cross-race perceivers, representing the perceived similarity between face pairs. In Study 2, independent groups of Black and White participants created lineups for Black and White suspects by selecting fillers from a pool of description-matched faces. The face spaces from Study 1 were used to evaluate suspect-filler similarity and the fairness of lineups created by same-race and cross-race constructors, as perceived by hypothetical Black and White eyewitnesses. These face spaces also allowed for an exploration of filler-selection strategies. The analysis of face spaces revealed a remarkable consistency in same-race and cross-race perceivers' perceptions of relative similarity for both Black and White face sets. Notably, lineups created by same-race and cross-race constructors were similar in terms of suspect-filler similarity and fairness for both Black-suspect and White-suspect lineups, regardless of the eyewitness's race. While constructors from both groups tended to select fillers who were similar to the suspect, they appeared to incorporate additional considerations to avoid selecting fillers who were too similar to the suspect. We discuss the implications of these findings for forensic lineup construction in practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).