Author ORCID Identifier:
Date of Graduation
7-2026
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD)
Degree Level
Graduate
Department
Psychological Science
Advisor/Mentor
Lampinen, James
Committee Member
Behrend, Douglas
Second Committee Member
Veilleux, Jennifer
Keywords
eyewitness memory; facial recognition; prior familiarity
Abstract
Research and criminal court cases have shown that it is common for an eyewitness to know the perpetrator of a crime. It is also evident from exoneration cases that mistaken witness identifications is one of the leading factors of wrongful convictions. Many factors affect the reliability and accuracy of an eyewitness identification, including familiarity between the eyewitness and the suspect. The current study had two phases: the first phase created prior familiarity to the suspect in a natural setting, and the second phase utilized a field-simulation paradigm to test facial recognition. In the second phase, participants saw a staged theft that was carried out by an unknown confederate that fit the same general description of the confederate they saw in the first phase. A culprit-absent showup was conducted following the theft, with the familiar confederate from the first phase as the suspect. It was hypothesized that (H1) showup accuracy will decrease as number of prior exposures to the suspect increases, and that (H2) showup accuracy and confidence (H3) will be higher among those who are metacognitively aware of their prior exposures to the suspect, compared to those who are not. Although prior exposures to the suspect did not predict showup accuracy, metacognitive awareness of the prior encounters did lower the false identification rate. Additional field research is needed to better understand how familiarity impacts facial recognition.
Citation
Wilson, M. H. (2026). Prior Familiarity and Eyewitness Memory: Creating Suspect Familiarity in the Field. Graduate Theses and Dissertations Retrieved from https://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/6393
