eyewitness memory

Response bias modulates the confidence-accuracy relationship for both positive identifications and lineup rejections in a simultaneous lineup task

Psychology, UC San Diego, Wixted Lab

A paper of mine was just published in Applied Cognitive Psychology. This paper investigates why the confidence-accuracy relationship (CAC) for lineup rejections is often flat (while the relationship between confidence and accuracy for postiveIDs is much stronger). Specifically, this paper looks at the role of response bias in terms of restricting the range of memory signal strengths associated with a particular decision. Range restriction for particular decision may lower the ability to detect a possible relationship given a particular level of confidence due to a reduction in sensitivity.

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What latent decision variable underlies confidence in police lineup rejections?

Psychology, UC San Diego, Wixted Lab

 A new paper of mine came out in Journal of Memory and Language this past February. This is a math modeling paper looking at whether a MAX or AVG decision rule is being used as the basis for confidence when rejecting a lineup. The decision rule for posIDs, by comparison, is a MAX rule.

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Preprint: The Scientific Principles of Memory vs. The Federal Rules of Evidence

Psychology, UC San Diego, Wixted Lab

We released a preprint of our paper, “The Scientific Principles of Memory versus the Federal Rules of Evidence,” on Open Science Framework. The manuscript was submitted for publication about a week ago.

Preprints, although citable, have neither been accepted/denied for publication nor have they undergone the peer-review process. It is expected that published manuscripts will differ from the original preprint—sometimes even in major ways (although that is never the hope). We decided to make our submitted manuscript available in this modality due to the expressed interest from those outside of our field.

This paper explains how memory contaminates, when memory is reliable, and how the current interpretation of the Federal Rules of Evidence (as it relates to eyewitness identification) may actually exacerbate the problem of irreparably contaminated evidence being used in the courtroom.

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APS & VSS: Upcoming Conference Poster Presentations

Psychology, UC San Diego, Wixted Lab

Today I received word from both the Association for Psychological Science (APS) and the Vision Sciences Society (VSS) that my abstracts were accepted at their annual conventions. Both of these presentations are part of my dissertation work that addresses the often-flat confidence-accuracy relationship found in police lineup rejections. Below is a description of each poster and information on the talks themselves.

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Presentation: Navy JAG Corps

Psychology, UC San Diego, Wixted Lab

Thank you to the Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps of the United States Navy for having me talk to their defense counsel teams in San Diego, CA and Bremerton, WA today for one of their weekly training days! In my talk, I discussed recall and recognition memory processes, why that distinction matters in the eyewitness domain, and then we talked about how eyewitness IDs are handled (and mishandled) by the criminal justice system. I conceptualize this (mis)handling as being due to the legal system’s lack of understanding on how memory contamination occurs in recognition memory. In my talk, I mentioned the latest consensus paper published in 2021, and introduced some topics that I’ll be discussing in my upcoming paper entitled “The Principles of Memory versus the Federal Rules of Evidence.” (It’s a working title.)

As always, speaking to attorneys about the latest research is always fun for me. I am thankful for this opportunity!

The Reveal Procedure: Enhancing Evidence of Innocence from Police Lineups

Psychology, UC San Diego, Wixted Lab

Law and Human Behavior chose to highlight a recent paper of mine in their “Research Highlight” series. The paper explores the viability of new police lineup procedure — a “Reveal” procedure — that enhances evidence of suspect innocence in a police lineup. (Lineups are typically designed to gather information about a suspect’s guilt.) This exploration was done using signal-detection-based model of eyewitness memory. LHB created a nifty graphic in their tweet below that explains what the paper is about, whom the paper is for, and why the paper is important. (Links to the original tweet and paper are below if the embed ever fails.)

 

 

View the original tweet.

 Read the paper in full.

 

 

 

Presenting: Vision Sciences Society (Virtual)

Psychology, UC San Diego, Wixted Lab

This June, I’ll be presenting  “A comparison between a rate-them-all simultaneous lineup procedure vs. standard simultaneous and show-up procedures” as a virtual poster at V-VSS.

The conference date is June 1-2nd. The poster will be presented in Poster Session 5 on Thursday, June 2nd at 7-9am (PDT).

ESRC Festival of Social Science (Seminar)

Psychology

Tomorrow, Nov. 16 @ 10am PST, I’ll be attending “Eyewitness Identification from a Different Angle,” a seminar part of the greater ESRC Festival of Social Science hosted by the University of Birmingham in the UK. The seminar hosts an all-star panel of researchers prominent in the fields of facial recognition and memory.

For those interested in eyewitness memory from a basic science perspective, I recommend attending! The event is free and open to the public, and will most certainly contain interesting discourse in the Q&A portion. The Q&A is live, but some prerecorded talks are available for viewing at the link above.

Speakers and Panelists:

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Presenting: APS Annual Convention (Virtual)

Psychology, UC San Diego, Wixted Lab

Tomorrow is the first day of APS Virtual! I’ll be presenting the poster, “Enhancing Evidence of Innocence from Police Lineups,” which you can find here. You will need to login to APS in order to access it. 

Additionally, I’ll be leading a Hot Topic Discussion on Memory in Forensics. I’m excited to see what ideas other APS members bring to the 30-minute discussion on the state of the field, where it’s going, and what questions we hope to be answered in the future. On a personal note, it’s super cool seeing my name listed as a speaker and being able to engage with other attendees in a live-session. This is my first time engaging with the APS research community in a manner other than a poster.