Better Models of Eyewitness Identification Across the Lifespan

Mcadoo, Ryan M, Norman OK

Investigators

Abstract

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program and SBE's Law and Social Sciences program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. David Kellen at Syracuse University, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist investigating eyewitness identification across the lifespan, including the understudied and growing population of older adults. In particular, little research in eyewitness identification has been guided by the sophisticated modeling often employed in the basic recognition memory literature. Furthermore, the unique, and growing population of aging adults is not as well studied within this domain as younger adults, leaving an unfortunate gap in the literature. The proposed research seeks to fill these gaps by utilizing sophisticated modeling approaches to understand eyewitness identification research across the lifespan. This research aims to promote the goals of the NSF by advancing basic research in recognition and eyewitness memory and serving the public welfare through investigation of better methods and practices for law enforcement officials administering lineup identifications. The proposed research has two main tracks: Theory Building and Empirical Investigation. The Theory Building portion of the proposal applies decades of knowledge modeling basic recognition memory and confidence decisions to the complex eyewitness identification task, using modern, sophisticated approaches to modeling such as hierarchical Bayesian methods. This work will advance fundamental understanding of the processes that underpin eyewitness identification decisions, and thereby allow for the identification of factors that can enhance eyewitness memory. As the Theory Building is underway, data will be collected from younger and aging adults completing eyewitness identification tasks under a variety of methods. In the Empirical Investigation, researchers will use what they learn from these new data in Theory Building to better understand and predict how these populations differ in making life-altering eyewitness identification decisions. Specific phenomena to be investigated include how younger and older adults differ (if indeed they do) in terms of accuracy, response bias (willingness to choose anyone from a lineup), and confidence-accuracy calibration under a number of different lineup conditions. The researchers aim to fill gaps in the literature in eyewitness identification by determining: (1) whether simultaneous lineups produce better performance than showups and sequential lineups for older adults, (2) whether older adults display a strong confidence-accuracy relationship, and (3) whether older adults exhibit an own-race bias. These phenomena have been routinely studied in younger adults, but with no verification that they generalize to an older adult population. Furthermore, the researchers will apply what they learn in the Theory Building portion of the proposed research to explain the mechanisms that give rise to the findings observed in these Empirical Investigations. One final consideration will be the impact of individual differences on eyewitness memory in younger and older adults. For example, the researchers will be interested in how low- and high-functioning older adults differ in how they perform in eyewitness identification tasks. Other variables, including literacy, age, socioeconomic status, working memory capacity, and attentional control, will be examined and analyzed using cutting-edge hierarchical modeling techniques. Ultimately, the proposed research will extend the small sphere of knowledge regarding how older adults function as eyewitnesses by providing new data and, more importantly, identifying the ways to improve how older adults make eyewitness lineup identifications. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.