Date of Graduation

5-2023

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts in Psychology

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Psychological Science

Advisor/Mentor

Lampinen, James M.

Committee Member

Payne, Whitney

Second Committee Member

Cavell, Timothy

Third Committee Member

Thomas, Johanna

Abstract

The reliability of eyewitness identification procedures and the following testimony in a court of law has been highly contested in recent decades. There are two main types of identification procedures most commonly used by law enforcement officers in the United States: lineups and showups. Prior research has indicated that lineups consistently yield the most accurate identifications due to the presence of fillers (plausible alternatives to a suspect) alongside the suspect when compared to showups. This is commonly attributed to two main theories- filler siphoning theory and diagnostic feature detection theory. In a study conducted by Colloff and Wixted (2020), researchers introduced a new form of an identification procedure- the simultaneous showup- in which a lineup is given and one suspect is surrounded by a red box. Results from this study indicated that simultaneous showups perform just as well as lineups, which Colloff and Wixted attribute solely to diagnostic feature detection theory and argue that filler siphoning cannot exist. The present research replicates and extends Colloff and Wixted (2020) to investigate which of the two theories could predict this phenomenon. Results indicated that both theories may be present but that filler siphoning theory may be the primary predictor.

Keywords

lineup; showup; eyewitness identification procedure; eyewitness memory; filler siphoning; diagnostic feature detection theory

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