title: The impact of multiple show-ups on eyewitness decision-making and innocence risk.
abstract: If an eyewitness rejects a show-up, police may respond by finding a new suspect and conducting a second show-up with the same eyewitness. Police may continue finding suspects and conducting show-ups until the eyewitness makes an identification (Study 1). Relatively low criterion-setting eyewitnesses filter themselves out of the multiple show-ups procedure by choosing the first suspect with whom they are presented (Studies 2 and 3). Accordingly, response bias was more stringent on the second show-up when compared with the first, but became no more stringent with additional show-ups. Despite this stringent shift in response bias, innocence risk increased with additional show-ups, as false alarms cumulate (Studies 2 and 3). Although unbiased show-up instructions decreased innocent suspect identifications, the numbers were still discouraging (Study 4). Given the high number of innocent suspects who would be mistakenly identified through the use of multiple show-up procedures, using such identifications as evidence of guilt is questionable. Although evidence of guilt is limited to identifications from a single show-up, practical constraints might sometimes require police to use additional show-ups. Accordingly, we propose a stronger partition between evidentiary and investigative procedures.
authors.affiliation: Queen's University.
authors.forename: Andrew M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.affiliation: University of Winnipeg.
authors.forename: Michelle
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bertrand
authors.affiliation: Queen's University.
authors.forename: R C L
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Lindsay
authors.affiliation: Queen's University.
authors.forename: Natalie
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kalmet
authors.affiliation: Queen's University.
authors.forename: Deborah
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Grossman
authors.affiliation: Queen's University.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Provenzano
mesh_terms: D003416:Criminal Law; D057237:Criminals; D008192:Deception; D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D006167:Guilt; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D012306:Risk; D055815:Young Adult