Citation

Wright DB, McDaid AT. Appl. Cogn. Psychol. 1996; 10(1): 75-84.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1996, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/(SICI)1099-0720(199602)10:1<75::AID-ACP364>3.0.CO;2-E

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

For many years psychologists have conducted carefully balanced and controlled experiments in order to understand the processes involved with line-up identifications. While the results are useful, several researchers have questioned whether these experiments are applicable to real line-ups. In this study we compare the results from two specialist line-up suites with the results from ordinary police stations. Witnesses at the suites chose foils more often than witnesses at the police stations. However, characteristics of the crimes, witnesses and suspects at the suites differed from those conducted at the stations. Many of these characteristics are also associated with increased proportions of foils being chosen. For example, the specialist suites tended to accommodate more non-white suspects, more crimes of violence and, at the time of this research, their line-ups occurred longer after the event. Several of the methodological difficulties of using data from real line-ups are discussed and appropriate statistical techniques are introduced.

Language: en