Attempts to Improve Children's Identifications From Sequential-Presentation Lineups

Attempts to Improve Children’s Identifications From Sequential-Presentation Lineups

JANAT FRASER PARKER1 AND AMBER MYERS Florida Inlernational Uninrversity

The effectiveness of practice and stringent lineup instructions in improving children’s identifications from sequential-presentation lineups was investigated. Elementary school children (N= 144) viewed a slide sequence of a crime followed by practice or control procedures. In the practice conditions, children either practiced themselves (self) or watched a videotape of a child practicing (modeled). Practice consisted of 2 target-absent lineups (unmixed) or a target-absent lineup and a target-present lineup (mixed) of female photos unrelated to the crime. The control conditions did not engage in identification practice. All witnesses were given stringent instructions for identifying the criminal from target-present or target-absent sequential-presentation lineups. Multiple responding was dramatically reduced. Practice affected gender differentially. Female children increased in correct identifications, whereas male children increased in false rejections. None of the practice procedures reduced foil identifications from target-absent lineups.

Children 6 years of age and older are typically comparable to adults in identification behavior from target-present lineups (Gross & Hayne, 1996; Lindsay, Pomlo , Craig, Lee, & Corber, 1997; Parker & Carranza, 1989; Parker, Haverfield, & Baker-Thomas, I 986; Parker & Ryan, 1993; also see Leippe, Manion, & Romancyk, 1991), although children younger than 6 years may show deficits in correct identifications (Goodman, Hirschman, Hepps, & Rudy, 1991; Goodman & Reed, 1986; Peters, 1987). However, when target-absent lineups are used, even older elementary school children are inferior to adults, making fewer correct rejections and more foil identifications (Lindsay et al., 1997; Parker & Ryan, 1993). King and Yuille (1987) point out that the photo lineup is like a leading question to children, enticing them to make responses. It appears that child witnesses have more relaxed decision criteria such that they tend to guess more than do adults, resulting in more foil identifications and fewer correct rejections in target-absent lineups.

Having established that children in the middle childhood years tend to guess more than do adults, it is critical to determine what procedures will reduce this guessing behavior. The adult literature (e.g., Cutler & Penrod, 1988; Lindsay,

lCorrespondence concerning this article should be addressed to Janat Fraser Parker, Department of Psychology, Florida International University, University Park, Miami. FL 33 199

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Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 2001,31,4, pp. 796-815. Copyright 0 2001 by V. H. Winston 8 Son, Inc. All rights reserved.

ATTEMPTS TO IMPROVE CHILDREN’S IDENTIFICATIONS 797

Lea, & Fulford, 1991; Lindsay & Wells, 1985; Sporer, 1993) has shown that sequential-presentation lineups reduce the number of false identifications from target-absent lineups. In sequential-presentation lineups, each alternative is presented separately and a decision is made for each alternative, without permitting the witness to reexamine any of the photos. In simultaneous-presentation lineups, all alternatives are presented at once, and only one decision is made.

Lindsay and Wells (1985) and Wells (1993) have suggested that simultaneous-presentation lineups encourage the eyewitness to make relative judgments and thus to choose the lineup member who most looks like the perpetrator. On the other hand, they claim that sequential-presentation lineups encourage an absolute standard of responding in which each lineup member is compared with the eyewitness’s recollection of the perpetrator. Parker and Ryan (1 993) manipulated mode of lineup presentation in children as well as adults with the expectation of reducing guessing behavior. With adults, sequential-presentation lineups produced the typical significant reduction in errors from target-absent lineups without a concomitant reduction in correct identifications from target-present lineups. With children, there was a nonsignificant trend toward a reduction in errors from target-absent lineups and no change in correct identifications from target-present lineups. Furthermore, in the sequential-presentation lineups, children, but not adults, demonstrated a propensity for guessing by choosing more than one response. Likewise, Lindsay et al. (1995), in a replication of Parker and Ryan, and Lindsay et al. (1997) also observed multiple responding by children and no significant reduction in errors from target-absent lineups.

As adult research has consistently demonstrated that the sequential-presentation lineup is the technique of choice over the simultaneous-presentation lineup and the showup in which only the suspect is presented (Lindsay et al., 1997), we decided to investigate further the sequential-presentation lineup with children. We were particularly interested in the effects of practice in reducing guessing in children’s sequential-presentation lineup performance. Practice in identification is consistent with Saywitz and Snyder’s (1993) recommendations that children be prepared in advance for the court situation in ways that do not raise legal, ethical, or constitutional dilemmas. Saywitz and Snyder improved memory performance, communication competence, and resistance to suggestion by providing extensive and sometimes specific training that focused on peer modeling, use of video techniques, and inhibition of task-inappropriate strategies, such as the impulse to guess. Practice with interviewing techniques and with identification from lineups can be considered advance preparation of child witnesses and does not result in any negative effects on due process for either the defense or the prosecution (Geiselman, Saywitz, & Bornstein, 1993).

Research on the effects of practice on children’s identification behavior has been equivocal (Davies, Stevenson-Robb, & Flin, 1988; Goodman, Bottoms, Schwartz-Kenney, & Rudy, 1991; Lindsay et al., 1995; Parker & Ryan, 1993;

798 PARKERANDMYERS

Pozzulo & Lindsay, 1997; Schwartz-Kenney, Duff, Martin, & Vogel, 1994). Across several of these studies, the design was similar; an eyewitness event occurred, and prior to identification of the target, the participants were given practice with choosing from unrelated lineups. In Davies et al., the children were presented a target-present lineup followed by a target-absent lineup and were asked to pick out the photo of the interviewer from three photos. In Goodman et al., the children received two target-present lineups followed by one target- absent lineup, all consisting of six photos each. Both studies examined the effects of practice with simultaneous-presentation lineups on later identification of the culprit from simultaneous-presentation lineups. Davies et al. found no effect of practice in target-present or target-absent lineups, but Goodman et al. found a reduction in false identifications from target-absent lineups, particularly for the older children in the study, aged 5 to 7 years.

Similar to Davies et al. ( 1 988), Parker and Ryan (1993) used two 3-person practice lineups (a target-present lineup followed by a target-absent lineup), but they compared sequential-presentation practice with simultaneous-presentation practice. Practice reduced target-absent errors in simultaneous-presentation lineups, but resulted in sequential-presentation lineups losing their advantage over simultaneous-presentation lineups in target-absent error reduction. The beneficial effects of absolute responding were no longer evident when children had practice with unrelated sequential-presentation lineups. On the other hand, Lindsay et al. (1995), using a target-present lineup and a target-absent lineup of the interviewer on the practice trials, found that practice was not effective in either sequential- presentation lineups or simultaneous-presentation lineups. Likewise, Pozzulo and Lindsay (1997) observed that neither a video demonstration of identification behavior nor a handout entailing identification practice produced a significant increase in correct rejections from simultaneous-presentation lineups. Schwartz- Kenney et al. (1994) explored the effects of practice on identification of person characteristics, such as hair color, eye color, height, age, or weight on target- present simultaneous-presentation lineups. Children who received practice were trained in the use of these characteristic lineups by applying the lineups to themselves and the interviewer before using the lineups to identify characteristics of a stranger. There were no overall effects of practice, although practice did interact with gender (to be discussed later). Thus, from the existing literature, it is diffi- cult to determine when practice will be an effective facilitator of identification behavior.

The current research attempts to determine if there are critical practice conditions that will aid identification behavior in sequential-presentation lineups. Chil- dren received two practice trials of target-absent lineups (unmixed practice) or a mixture of one trial of target-absent practice with one trial of target-present practice (mixed practice). All previous studies have used mixed practice with inconclusive results. As the particular difficulty manifested by children is the lax


criterion resulting in an increase in false identifications from target-absent lineups, we hypothesize that two trials of target-absent practice (unmixed practice) will be more likely than will mixed practice to prevent guessing in the criminal lineups. Children should become more comfortable withholding a choice response after two previous practice trials in which the target was absent; the demand characteristic to choose an alternative should be more strongly counter- acted.

In Parker and Ryan ( 1 993), it is possible that the participants may have devel- oped a set to guess by the third trial of the criminal identification as there were only three photos in the practice trials. Thus, the number of photos in the practice lineups of the present study was increased from three to eight. The larger number of photos ensured that the number of alternatives would be greater than the six photos shown in the critical identification trial and was another means to reduce pressure to make a choice early.

The effects of practice are also investigated as a function of the agent of practice; that is, whether children practiced themselves (self-practice) or watched a videotape of another child engaging in the same practice procedure (modeled practice). Tobey and Goodman (1992) have argued that active participation by a child ensures greater attention to the task and more active processing than does more simple observation. We hypothesize that self-practice will be a more potent means of practice but that modeled practice might still be effective. Saywitz and Snyder (1 993) have used video and peer modeling in other milieus as effective teaching tools (but see Pozzulo & Lindsay, 1997). If the modeled procedure were as productive as the self-procedure, we reason that a videotaped practice session will be a more viable procedure for the courts to employ. Further, this more time- and cost-effective procedure would avoid the problem of children making errors in the self-practice condition, thereby rendering any later testimony less credible.

The effect of gender of witness on identification behavior and any interactions with practice are also investigated. There is a dearth of evidence regarding the impact of gender on eyewitness identification, both with adults and with children. Yarmey and Jones ( I 983) observed that female adults made more false rejections from target-present lineups than did male adults, whereas others (Cross, Cross, & Daly, 1971; Ellis, Shepherd, & Bruce, 1973; McKelvie, 1978) have observed a female superiority in correct identifications restricted largely to female faces. Parker and Ryan ( 1 993) reported that male adults and children made more foil identifications from target-present lineups (simultaneous presentation and sequential presentation) and were more likely to give multiple responses from sequential-presentation lineups than were female adults and children. The latter findings suggest that males may be more prone to guessing than are females. With respect to the practice variable, Schwartz-Kenney et al. (1994) observed that male children had a significantly higher rate of incorrect responses

800 PARKER AND MYERS

with practice than without practice, whereas females did not differ as a function of practice. In light of the limited attention given the gender variable and the unclear results to date, the role of eyewitness gender is systematically explored across the various practice procedures investigated in this study. Although gender differences in accuracy of eyewitness identification are probably small, Yarmey and Jones emphasize that knowledge of these differences may be of practical consequence to police and the court system.

A stringent version of sequential-presentation instructions was used through- out the practice and critical lineups of the present study. A problem of sequential presentation has been the tendency to make multiple choices, which is exacer- bated in children (Lindsay et al., 1995, 1997; Parker & Ryan, 1993). Researchers have handled multiple responding in various ways, such as counting only the first choice (Sporer, 1993), counting the choices as nonidentifications (Lindsay et al., 1997), counting only the data from single identifications (Corey, Malpass, & McQuiston, 1999), or counting the choices as foil-identification errors (Lindsay &Wells, 1985; Parker & Ryan, 1993).

No satisfactory solution to this dilemma has been achieved in the laboratory and, unfortunately, in the forensic situation, children’s credibility is severely impeached when more than one perpetrator is chosen. Parker and Ryan (1 993) have suggested that whenever a low criterion is operative, as with child witnesses or witnesses exposed to auditory lineups (Melara, DeWitt-Rickards, & 0’ Brien, 1989), multiple responding will be more prevalent. Thus, we attempt to reduce multiple responding by creating a higher criterion of responding; unbiased stringent instructions that expressly discourage more than one choice are used. When Cutler and Penrod (1988) informed adults that they could make only one “Yes” response in a sequential-presentation lineup, they eliminated multiple responding. A similar strategy with children has not been examined. Perhaps such a radi- cal procedure will force children in the sequential-presentation lineup to be more selective and to reduce errors in target-absent lineups, as well as reduce multiple responding.

The manner in which the photos are presented in the sequential lineup was carefully determined. In Parker and Ryan (1993), the children were not informed of the number of photos that they would be shown, but no attempt was made to disguise the number. Children could see the stack of photos decreasing and the number of response sheets decreasing. Likewise, Lindsay et al. (1997) presented the specified number of response sheets, and so the length of the lineup was not purposely disguised. When the size of the lineups was unknown to the participants, Lindsay et al. were successfid in the reduction of foil identifications for adults (Lindsay et al., 1991), but not for children (Lindsay et al., 1995). In the present study, we indirectly led the children to believe that there was a specific number of photos greater than the actual number; the children were exposed to two more photos in the practice lineups than the number of photos in the final


lineups, and additional alternatives were clearly delineated on the response sheet. We hypothesize that this will concretely demonstrate to the children that there are more photos to evaluate, rather than a nebulous feeling that more photos might be presented. Presumably, there will not be as great a pressure to choose if children know that there are more photos to consider, and hence there will be fewer foil identifications.

The present study evaluates attempts to improve children’s identification behavior from sequential-presentation lineups. Stringent sequential-presentation instructions were employed, and the effects of four different practice procedures were systematically explored.

Method

Participants and Design

The design involved four practice conditions and two control conditions. In the practice conditions, agent of practice (self vs. modeled) was factorially combined with content of practice (unmixed vs. mixed). The two control conditions rated age and hair curliness of head and shoulder frontal photos of women, but did not practice identification procedures. Control 1 was not given any reason for why they were asked to rate the photos, but Control 2 was informed that this rating served as a training procedure to help with identification of criminals from police lineups. The latter control was added to make sure that any differences between practice and control conditions was not a result of a possible prior warn- ing about lineups. Type of criminal lineup (target present vs. target absent) varied between subjects for all six conditions. There was an equal number of males and females in each condition. Participants were 144 elementary school children ( M = 9 years, 3 months; range = 8 years, 4 months to 10 years, 8 months) from a public elementary school in Miami, Florida.

The students were run in groups of two (target present and target absent) and were randomly assigned to conditions in order of their appearance at the laboratory. The two students were separated by a portable screen so that they could not see each other at the time of test.

Materials

Slide sequences. Two slide sequences of 15 color slides each were constructed with three adult males and four adult females serving as actors (M = 24 years). Two additional males (2 1 years and 26 years) served as the suspects in the crime, one for each slide sequence. In all slide sequences, the scenario was a pic- nic scene at the park with young adults eating chips, drinking soda, and playing Frisbee. On the 11 th slide, a male suspect enters and steals a radio from a blanket.


The suspect is viewed in frontal view for three slides and in rear view for one. The two slide sequences were used equally often across conditions. These slide sequences were used in Parker and Ryan (1 993).

Photograph lineups. Lineups were composed of six 10.25 cm x 7.75 cm, black and white, head and shoulder, frontal-view photographs of the suspect or suspect substitute and five distractors. Photographs were taken of 13 adult males (A4 = 24 years) who were chosen for their similarity in general appearance to one of the suspects. All were photographed in white T-shirts and with a serious expression. The similarity of the distractors to each of the suspects was rank ordered by two different sets of eight adults. From these rankings, separate lineups were constructed for each suspect, with the middle level of similarity chosen to optimize fairness (Wogalter, Marwitz, & Leonard, 1992). This resulted in four lineups: two lineups with different males as suspects, and two lineups with different males as suspect substitutes. The position of the target or target substitute was counterbalanced across participants so that each position was equally repre- sented. These lineups were used in Parker and Ryan (1993).

Practice lineups were composed of two sets of eight 10.25 cm x 7.75 cm black and white, head and shoulder frontal-view photographs of females. The gender difference between practice lineups and actual lineups was chosen to help eliminate any potential interference. One set included the female interviewer or interviewer substitute and seven distractors who were chosen for their similarity in age and general appearance to the interviewer. The other set included eight additional photographs of different females who were chosen for their similarity in age to the children’s mothers. All were photographed in white T-shirts and with a serious expression. The similarity of the female distractors to the interviewer was rank ordered by 10 adults, and two lineups were constructed, one with interviewer present and one with interviewer absent. An additional lineup was constructed of eight females to be used for the mother-absent lineups.

Practice videos. Two videos were professionally constructed by the media department of the university. The interviewer for the actual experiment and an 8- year-old female were the actors in the video. The interviewer gave the same target-present and target-absent instructions as were given to the actual participants who were in the self conditions. In the modeled conditions, the 8-year-old child responded to eight photos. In the target-present lineup, the child correctly marked “Yes” for the seventh photo, which was of the interviewer, and correctly responded “No” to the remaining seven photos. In the target-absent lineup, the child correctly responded “No” to all eight photos and also marked “None of the above” at the bottom of the sheet. The videotaped child also made confidence ratings after each choice and at the end of the lineup, as did children in the self conditions. (The confidence ratings were identical to those described for the critical lineups.) The total exposure time to the practice photographs was comparable in the self and modeled conditions.

AlTEMPTS TO IMPROVE CHILDREN’S IDENTIFICATIONS 803

Lineup Characteristics

Two measures of lineup fairness were used to evaluate the bias (functional size) and size (effective size) aspects of fairness of the four critical lineups. Func- tional size (Wells, Leippe, & Ostrom, 1979) focuses on the bias toward or away from the target, whereas effective size (Malpass & Devine, 1983) focuses on the degree to which a lineup contains implausible foils. Responses of 339 mock witnesses (undergraduates) were used to compute the functional and effective sizes. The procedure for conducting these mock lineups is described in detail in Parker and Ryan (1 993). The effective sizes of the four lineups ranged from 4.6 to 5.1. The functional sizes (3.5, 5.5, 5.5, and 6.4) were all above the criterion of 3.0, which Brigham, Ready, and Spier (1990) claim, in practical terms, is the criterion for meaningful bias.

Procedure

All participants saw a 15-slide sequence of a simulated crime at a rate of 5 s per slide. They were instructed to determine what was happening in the story told by the slides. Practice lineups were presented to 96 children (practice conditions), and 48 children received no practice lineups (control conditions). After the slide presentation, the students in the practice conditions received preliminary information on the definition of a police lineup and the importance of training/practice in the identification of a criminal from a lineup.

The participants were then presented two sequential-presentation practice lineups. Those in the unmixed practice conditions received two target-absent lineups; the first was interviewer absent and the second was mother absent. They were advised that the interviewer’s or their mother’s photo might or might not be present in the lineup. Those in the mixed-practice conditions received a target- present and a target-absent lineup, with the order counterbalanced across participants. The target-present lineup included the interviewer, whereas the target- absent lineup was mother absent. In other words, the children never received a target-present lineup with their mother’s picture in the array. The children were advised that the critical photo might or might not be present in the lineup and that they should mark “None of the above” at the bottom of the page if they thought that the photo was not present. After each lineup, the interviewer confirmed the choice if it was correct, or pointed out the correct response if the choice was incorrect. Half of the participants in the practice conditions engaged in live practice (self) and half watched a videotaped practice session of another child (modeled). The practice lineups consisted of 8 alternatives presented from a stack of 10 photos. In addition, there were 10 designated response areas on the answer sheet, with Picture I through Picture 10 as headings.

The remaining students (control conditions) received no prior practice but were exposed to the practice photos for a comparable period of time by rank-


ordering the two sets of eight photos for age and hair curliness. Children i n Con- trol 1 were instructed in the rating behavior alone, whereas those in Control 2 received instructions similar to the preliminary instructions of the practice conditions on the definition of a police lineup and the importance of training to help in identitjing a criminal. This second control was included to ensure that any bene- fit of practice could not be attributed to the fact that the preliminary instructions may have cued the students that they would later be asked to identify the criminal from the slide sequence that they had viewed. Approximately the same amount of time elapsed for all conditions during the practice and control procedures. Like- wise, children in the control conditions also had practice with confidence ratings by rating how confident they were of each of their choices on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 Gust guessing) to 5 (very sure).

Participants were then presented the experimentally relevant target-present or target-absent lineups. They were reminded of the slide presentation and were instructed that the suspect might or might not be in the lineup. If they thought that the suspect was not in any of the photos presented, they were instructed to mark “None of the above” at the bottom of the response sheet. They were instructed that they could only put a “Yes” after one photo and that they should be very careful before making any choice. They were told that all of the photos would be shown to them just to be complete, but once they made a “Yes” response, they could not choose another photo. The children viewed the lineup members in sequential order and made a Yes-No decision after each member was presented. After making each decision, they rated the confidence of their choices on a 5- point scale ranging from 1 (just guessing) to 5 (very sure). Children saw all six photos, regardless of what decisions they had made on previous photos. Although only six photos were presented to the children, there were 10 photos in the stack and 10 designated response areas on the response sheet. In addition to the confidence rating made after each of the six decisions, an overall confidence rating was made of all of the previous decisions on a separate page.

Results

Photo Identification

Overall, 34% of the children made the correct choice, namely a correct identification in target-present lineups or a correct rejection in target-absent lineups. The position of the suspect or suspect-substitute in the photographic array had no effect on the child’s correct choice, x 2 ( 5 , N = 144) = 1.53, p > .05, nor did the particular target person used in the slides, x2 < 1.

Wells and Lindsay’s (1985) designation of two types of correct responses (correct identifications in target-present lineups and correct rejections in target- absent lineups) and four types of errors (false rejections and foil-identification


alpha errors in target-present lineups, and foil-identification beta errors and false identifications in target-absent lineups) was used. Foil-identification alpha errors occur only when the suspect is guilty, whereas foil-identification beta errors and false identifications occur only when the suspect is innocent. Foil-identification alpha and beta errors are both known errors in that the legal system knows in advance who the foils are (Wells & Turtle, 1986), whereas false identifications are unknown errors. As there were no differences between the two control conditions on any of these measures, the control conditions were collapsed in all analyses.

Table 1 shows the frequencies and proportions of correct responses and errors as a function of lineup presentation, agent of practice, content of practice, and gender. Lindsay et al. (1997) recommended that the data from target-present and target-absent lineups be examined separately, as different psychological pro- cesses may control these decisions. However, because of the current dispute in the literature regarding this issue, we also have provided an initial loglinear analysis comparing total correct responses from both target-present and target-absent lineups. As the data are presented as proportions, tests of simple effects used Z tests for differences between proportions. Effect size ( h ) is provided for the reported differences between proportions (Cohen, 1988).

Correct decisions. Initially, the number of correct decisions (correct identifications and correct rejections) of the four combined practice conditions was compared to the two combined control conditions in a 2 x 2 x 2 (Condition: Prac- tice vs. Control x Type of Lineup: Target Present vs. Target Absent x Gender: Male vs. Female) loglinear analysis. There was a main effect of lineup type, x2( 1, N = 144) = 8.48, p < .01, showing that children surprisingly made more correct rejections (M = 0.46) than correct identifications (A4 = 0.22), and a three-way interaction of Lineup Type x Condition x Gender, x2( 1, N = 144) = 9.24, p < .01.

To further understand this interaction, Condition x Gender loglinear analyses were carried out separately on correct identifications in target-present lineups and correct rejections in target-absent lineups. There were no main effects of condition or gender in correct identifications, but there was a Gender x Condition interaction, x*( 1, N = 72) = 11 SO, p < .OO 1 (Figure 1). Females improved with practice (z = 3.79, h = 1.03, p < .001), whereas males showed a decrement with practice (z = 2.18, h = 0.82, p < .05). There were no main effects or interactions in the Condition x Gender loglinear analysis of correct rejections in target-absent lineups.

In order to look at the effects of particular practice procedures on correct identifications, individual comparisons of each of the experimental conditions with the control were made for males and females separately. For females, the unmixed self condition was clearly superior to the control (z = 2.45, h = 1.28, p < .O 1); the other three practice conditions (unmixed modeled condition, mixed self condition, and mixed modeled condition) each surpassed the control, with the


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ATTEMPTS TO IMPROVE CHILDREN'S IDENTIFICATIONS 807

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Figure I. Mean proportion of correct identifications as a function of practice condition and gender.

differences significant in one-tailed tests (all zs = 1.73, hs = 0.94, ps < .04) but not in two-tailed tests @s < .08). Males in the mixed self-practice condition did not differ from the control (z < 1). Males in each of the other three practice conditions (unmixed self, unmixed modeled, and mixed modeled) were inferior to the control (all zs = 2.93, hs = 0.99, ps < .01, two-tailed).

Errors. Condition x Gender loglinear analyses were also carried out for each type of error in target-present lineups, as well as each type of error in target- absent lineups. In target-present lineups, there was a main effect of gender in foil- identification alpha errors, x2( 1 , N = 72) = 7 . 4 0 , ~ < .O 1, with males making more of these errors than females. In the analysis of false rejections, there was a Gender x Condition interaction, x2( 1 , N = 72) = 4.5 1 , p < .05. Males made more false rejections in the practice conditions than in the control conditions (z = 2.90, h = 0 . 9 0 , ~ < .Ol ) , whereas females did not differ in the number of false rejections across conditions (z < 1). In target-absent lineups, there were no main effects or interactions in false identifications, foil-identification beta errors, or the combi- nation of these two errors.

Multiple responding. There was an opportunity to choose more than one lineup member, even though children were strongly encouraged to make only one choice. Although other studies (e.g., Lindsay et al., 1997; Parker & Ryan, 1993) have shown substantial multiple responding with children, the procedure of the present study resulted in only 4 children of 144 giving multiple responses (3 from


control and 1 from practice). In the prior analyses, if more than one choice was made, the choice was designated a foil-identification alpha error in target-present lineups or a foil-identification beta error in target-absent lineups. In other words, any child witness who selected more than one photo from a lineup was known to be in error and was not considered a probative source of evidence.

Practice Identifications

Typically, performance on practice trials has not been evaluated, although the effectiveness of the training may be a function of the child’s behavior on these trials. Practice trial performance could be examined only in the unmixed self and mixed self conditions as these were the only conditions in which the children themselves made the choices. Identification of the mother was always from a target-absent lineup, and the children were 100% correct in rejecting all of the photos. Children were correct 79% of the time on both interviewer-present and interviewer-absent lineups.

Phi correlations of accuracy on practice trials to accuracy on the critical photo identification were carried out to determine if there was a relationship between performance on these two tasks. There was no evidence of any overall correlation (4 = .02) or any partial correlations involving gender, lineup type, or practice condition. This suggests that there were no individual differences in children’s recognition memory as reflected in this type of identification behavior, although the lack of variability in practice performance may have contributed to the failure to find a correlation.

Choice Behavior

Total choice responses were examined as they reflect the response biases of eyewitnesses. Total choices include correct identifications, alpha and beta foil identifications, and false identifications, but not correct and false rejections. In the loglinear analysis of choice responses as a function of condition and gender, gender was significant, x*( 1, N = 144) = 5.22, p < .05, with males making more choices than females. A marginally significant Gender x Condition interaction, x2( 1, N = 144) = 3.52, p < .06, showed that males decreased in the total number of choice responses from control to practice conditions ( z = 2.10, h = 0.50, p < .OS) , whereas females did not significantly change from control to practice conditions (z 1).

Confidence Ratings

Confidence was assessed by using two separate scores: confidence rating of the target or target-substitute (target confidence) and confidence rating made after all photos had been presented (overall confidence). In order to determine if


absolute levels of confidence differed as a function of practice, gender, and target presence, analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were conducted separately for accurate (correct identifications and correct rejections) and inaccurate responses (foil identification alpha and beta errors, false identifications, and false rejections). ANOVAs on target confidence of accurate identifications failed to show any main effects or interactions. A similar analysis on target confidence of inaccurate responses yielded no main effects but there was a Target Presence x Gender interaction, F( 1, 86) = 5.91, q2 = .02, p < .05. A test of the simple effects of this interaction showed that males were more confident than females of their inaccurate responses in target-present lineups, F( I , 69) = 4.52, q2 = .04, p < .05, whereas males and females did not differ in their level of confidence of inaccurate responses in target-absent lineups, F < I . For the measure of overall confidence there were no main effects or interactions for accurate or inaccurate responses.

In order to determine the forensic value of confidence ratings, correlations of confidence and accuracy were carried out on identification accuracy and confidence level. Two separate point-biserial correlations (see Sporer, Penrod, Read, & Cutler, 1995, for rationale) were carried out for each measure of confidence: an analysis of whether correct identifications were made more confidently than false identifications (choice responses), and an analysis of whether correct rejections were made more confidently than false rejections (nonchoice responses). Point-biserial correlations conducted on choosers with target confidence and overall confidence both failed to show correlations (rs = -.07 and -.28, respectively). Likewise, point-biserial correlations conducted on nonchoosers with target confidence and overall confidence also failed to reveal any correlations (rs =

-.23 and .03, respectively).

Discussion

The major purpose of the present study was to evaluate methods to reduce the guessing behavior of children with sequential-presentation lineups. Stringent but unbiased instructions for choosing the perpetrator were utilized in four different practice conditions and two control conditions. Before examining the effects of practice, we will address the effects of the stringent instructions on identification behavior of children.

The sequential-presentation procedure of the current study succeeded in vir- tually eliminating children’s tendency to make multiple responses (only 3% of the children made more than one choice). Although there is no direct comparison with other sequential-presentation methods, the literature has consistently shown that children have a strong propensity to make more than one choice with sequential-presentation lineups (20% for elementary school children in Lindsay et al., 1995; 74% for preschool children in Lindsay et al., 1997; 44% for elementary school children in Parker & Ryan, 1993). This dramatic reduction in multiple


responding is of practical significance to the legal arena as children’s credibility will not be compromised by making numerous choices from the same lineup. The current study used stringent instructions for choosing in conjunction with the procedure of leading the witness to think that there would be more photos than presented. As Parker and Ryan and Lindsay et al. (1997) also did not inform the children of lineup size (although the children in these studies perhaps could con- jecture the actual size), it appears that the stringent instructions to make only one choice was the critical variable. Further, Cutler and Penrod (1988) using similar instructions with adults found no evidence of any multiple responses.

Another interesting result of the present study is that children made more correct rejections than correct identifications, whereas the literature (Lindsay et al., 1997; Parker & Carranza, 1989; Parker & Ryan, 1993) typically finds more correct identifications than correct rejections or no differences between the two identification behaviors. This apparent discrepancy is, however, consistent with an overall lower level of responding, as evidenced by the reduction in the number of multiple responses from the sequential-presentation lineups. Although correct rejections were greater than correct identifications, it does not appear that correct identifications were negatively affected by the stringent instructions. Parker and Ryan, using the same materials, observed that children in sequential-presentation lineups made an average of 0.29 correct identifications and 0.29 correct rejections, whereas children in the present study made an average of 0.22 correct identifications and 0.46 correct rejections. Furthermore, with adults, Cutler and Penrod (1 988) found that stringent instructions in sequential-presentation lineups did not alter the number of correct identifications relevant to simultaneous- presentation lineups. Future research will need to assess whether or not the two positive outcomes of the stringent procedure (reduction in multiple responding and an increase in correct rejections) are at the expense of the number of correct identifications.

Practice was the major variable manipulated to improve children’s identification behavior from sequential-presentation lineups. An overall analysis comparing the correct decisions of the two control conditions with the combined practice conditions failed to find a main effect of practice. However, practice affected males and females differentially. Female children showed an increase in correct identifications with practice, whereas male children showed no change or a decrease in correct identifications. It is important to point out that differences in the effects of practice on correct identifications are partially a result of initial differences in control responding by males and females (Figure I ) . Males suffered a decrement with practice, whereas females benefited from practice. As the cell size for the control participants was small (12 per gender category), interpretation of these findings requires caution. However, consistent with these findings, males increased in the number of false rejections and decreased in overall choices with practice, whereas females did not change in either false rejections or overall choices.

A’ITEMPTS TO IMPROVE CHILDREN’S IDENTIFICATIONS 81 1

Males and females did not exhibit any changes with practice in the target- absent lineups. Unfortunately, the particular response tendencies we most hoped to affect were correct rejections, and these were not altered, regardless of practice procedure or gender of the child. The reduction in overall choice responses with practice did not have any beneficial effect on male responding; rather, it appeared to reduce correct identifications and increase false rejections, as opposed to reducing foil identifications or increasing correct rejections.

Schwartz-Kenney et al. (1994) found gender effects consistent with the present study in their experiment exploring the effects of practice on simultaneous-presentation lineups of targets’ characteristics, such as hair color, weight, height, age, and skin texture. They observed an increase in the number of incorrect responses for males who had practice, but not for females. Schwartz-Kenney et al. suggest that males may have experienced confusion because the final lineups consisted of females, and their practice lineups involved males, identifLing characteristics of themselves. Females, on the other hand, had consistent gender across practice and critical lineups. In the current study, the practice trials involved identification of females, whereas the critical forensic identification involved males. The adult literature suggests that females are better than are males at identifying female faces (Cross et al., 1971; Ellis et al., 1973; McKelvie, 1978). Perhaps female children gained more than did male children from the practice trials and were also better able to generalize strategies used with identification of female photos to the final identification of male photos.

Males made more foil-identification alpha errors than did females, regardless of practice, consistent with Parker and Ryan (1993). Based on gender differences in the effects of misleading questions on recall, Saywitz, Moan, and Lamphear (1991) suggest that impulsivity in males may influence suggestibility. This same impulsivity may encourage more guessing in males, as evidenced by the greater number of foil-identification alpha errors and more choice responses in general for males than for females. As the guessing tendencies of males and females vary initially, it is not surprising that practice effects may affect their behavior in different ways. Future studies addressing the gender issue should compare identification from both male and female lineups. Furthermore, in studies of the effects of practice, the practice lineups and the critical lineups should involve identifications of the same gender as well as differing genders.

Practice may not have reduced false identifications as anticipated, but it did increase correct identifications for female children. In the past, correct identifications have not been altered easily by experimental manipulations such as type of lineup or practice (Davies et al., 1988; Goodman, Bottoms, et al., 1991; Parker & Ryan, 1993). However, Beal, Schmitt, and Dekle (1995) and Lindsay et al. ( 1 997) observed that children make significantly more correct identifications with showups than with target-present lineups, so there has been some recent evidence of manipulations of correct identifications. Likewise, Pozzulo and


Lindsay (1 997) observed that extending “standard” instructions in simultaneous- presentation lineups increased the number of correct identifications, but did not affect the number of correct rejections for young children aged 10 and I 1 years.

In the present study, it is possible that the practice lineups were not demanding enough to produce a beneficial effect in target-absent lineups. Not a single child erred by choosing a photo in the mother-absent lineup, and 79% were correct in interviewer-absent lineups. Further, neither of these practice lineups are directly analogous to the stranger-perpetrator identification procedure. In the mother-absent situation, children compare the picture with a memory trace of a well-known individual; and in the interviewer lineups, the interviewer is in front of them so they are not relying on a memory trace at all. Our initial hypothesis was that these rather easy lineups would help reduce the demand characteristics to choose a lineup member. However, it may be necessary to have the children exercise the rejection of lineup members in more ambiguous situations. This would ensure that demand characteristics were operative so that they could then be altered by the practice procedure.

Furthermore, it also may be important to explicitly train children in the appro- priateness of rejecting the lineup photos in certain circumstances. Ghatala, Levin, Pressley, and Goodwin (1 986) showed that children 7 to 8 years of age may not routinely use information that they gain from strategy use, but that they can be trained to do so. They recommend the tactic of performing a thorough task analysis followed by training matched to the analysis. Thus, it behooves us to determine the separate components of the identification task and then to develop an appropriate training method based on this analysis to include with the practice

Practice with sequential-presentation lineups once more failed to reduce false identifications in sequential-presentation target-absent lineups. However, female children did show improvement in correct identifications with practice, whereas males showed a decrement with practice. A particularly interesting and fruitful finding of this study is the severe reduction in multiple responding. Stringent instructions to make only one choice, coupled with misleading the children into believing that there would be more photos to evaluate than were actually presented, was effective in essentially eliminating this problem.

Future research on practice effects should focus on more demanding practice trials. The development of a training procedure that utilizes a detailed task analysis of the components of the identification task in conjunction with the practice trial is recommended.

task.

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Attempts to Improve Children's Identifications From Sequential-Presentation Lineups

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