Date of Graduation

5-2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Psychology (MA)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

Psychological Science

Advisor/Mentor

James M. Lampinen

Committee Member

Lindsay S. Ham

Second Committee Member

Byron L. Zamboanga

Keywords

chronic alcohol misuse; cross-race effect; eyewitness identification; eyewitness memory; facial recognition

Abstract

Both perpetrators and eyewitnesses of a crime have often been found to be under the influence of alcohol. While research has been conducted on the short-term effect of alcohol on eyewitness memory and lineup performance, little research has investigated the long-term effects of chronic alcohol misuse on facial recognition abilities. The current study investigated the effect of alcohol misuse on facial recognition and whether duration of misuse contributed to this effect. Participants (n = 370) completed an online survey which consisted of a well-tested facial recognition paradigm plus several surveys pertaining to individual differences of interest. We found race match to be a significant predictor of accuracy. Specifically, higher accuracy when the race of the target and participant were the same which supports previous findings on the cross-race effect. Lineup type was also a significant predictor of accuracy, with higher accuracy for target present lineups. Accuracy did not differ between the control and alcohol groups, suggesting no effect of long-term alcohol misuse on facial recognition. Overall, we found robust evidence on the relevance of the cross-race effect which suggests that long-term alcohol misuse may not interfere with neural mechanisms that are responsible for cross-race recognition. The findings contribute to a growing body of research that examines the effects of long-term alcohol misuse and accuracy, however further research is needed to generalize the effects across a broad array of facial recognition paradigms and retention intervals.

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