The effects of familiarity and first impressions on eyewitness testimony in a target-absent line-up

Abstract

Eyewitness identification is often the leading factor contributing to convictions, however, eyewitness misidentifications are the leading cause of the incarceration of innocent persons. Even more troubling is that eyewitness identifications are often made with high confidence. Familiarity is a key component of eyewitness identification. Familiarity refers to our recognition of familiar faces – friends, celebrities and even unfamiliar faces learned during experiments. First impressions, on the other hand, are the snap judgments we make about a person’s character and intentions based on their facial features, attractiveness and race. The present study will investigate 1) whether eyewitness identifications are affected by the target being familiar; 2) if being familiar leads to more accurate identifications; and 3) if our first impressions of a target (positive, negative, or neutral target description) affect our identification accuracy and perceptions of guilt. We will also investigate if our perceptions differ based on the race of a target.