4.23 - Eyewitness Identification

Eyewitnesses commonly provide evidence during criminal cases, but are commonly perceived as error-prone. We present results that challenge this notion. The core of this challenge arises from viewing research from the joint perspectives of discriminability (the ability to distinguish innocent from guilty suspects) and reliability (the likelihood the person identified is actually the perpetrator). We also describe an organizational framework that classifies variables according to the different stages of memory as they map onto the different stages of the crime/criminal justice process, and review how these variables affect discriminability and reliability. Although particular variables impair witness discriminability, witnesses still are often reliable, because identifications made with high confidence on the initial memory test are typically highly accurate. The discriminability/reliability perspective and our organizational framework have implications for how eyewitness identification evidence should be used by the criminal justice system.