International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 31 (2008) 430437

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

International Journal of Law and Psychiatry

Does methodology matter in eyewitness identication research?: The effect of live versus video exposure on eyewitness identication accuracy
Joanna D. Pozzulo , Charmagne Crescini, Tasha Panton
Department of Psychology, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1S 5B6

a r t i c l e
Keywords: Eyewitness Lineup Identication Methodology Video Live

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
The present study examined the effect of mode of target exposure (live versus video) on eyewitness identication accuracy. Adult participants (N = 104) were exposed to a staged crime that they witnessed either live or on videotape. Participants were then asked to rate their stress and arousal levels prior to being presented with either a target-present or -absent simultaneous lineup. Across target-present and -absent lineups, mode of target exposure did not have a signicant effect on identication accuracy. However, mode of target exposure was found to have a signicant effect on stress and arousal levels. Participants who witnessed the crime live had higher levels of stress and arousal than those who were exposed to the videotaped crime. A higher level of arousal was signicantly related to poorer identication accuracy for those in the video condition. For participants in the live condition however, stress and arousal had no effect on eyewitness identication accuracy. Implications of these ndings in regards to the generalizability of laboratory-based research on eyewitness testimony to real-life crime are discussed. 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Laboratory-based experimental studies have contributed greatly to the large body of research available on adult eyewitness memory (Goodman, Hirschman, Hepps, & Rudy, 1991; Loftus, 1979). Despite this contribution, some have challenged the ecological validity of lab-based studies, claiming that several factors that operate in real-life situations are not successfully replicated in the laboratory (Malpass, Sporer, & Koehnken, 1996; Tollestrup, Turtle, & Yuille, 1994; Yuille & Wells, 1991). An often-cited criticism is that the vast majority of laboratory studies utilize videotaped crime simulations that do not engender the same degree of personal threat and therefore fail to elicit the same level of stress and arousal that one may experience when faced with real-life crime events (Penrod, Fulero, & Cutler, 1995). This discrepancy poses a potential problem for the validity of lab-based studies given that stress and arousal, and the subsequent release of endogenous stress hormones, have been found to signicantly inuence memory consolidation and long-term retention of emotionally arousing stimuli (e.g., Cahill, Gorski, & Le, 2003). The present study investigated the effect of mode of target exposure (live versus video) and witnesses' stress and arousal levels on eyewitness identication accuracy. The ndings of the present study are relevant not only with regards to the reliability of eyewitnesses, but to the ongoing debate about the ecological validity of using videotaped staged crimes in laboratory-based eyewitness research as well. 1.1. Effects of stress and arousal on eyewitness memory The impact of stress and arousal on memory is of considerable forensic interest given that witnessing a crime typically generates a stress response that may affect (impair or enhance) memory acquisition and consolidation processes. Consequently,

Corresponding author. E-mail address: joanna_pozzulo@carleton.ca (J.D. Pozzulo). 0160-2527/$ see front matter 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijlp.2008.08.006

J.D. Pozzulo et al. / International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 31 (2008) 430437

431

this may affect the ability of eyewitnesses to provide accurate, detailed descriptions of the criminal and the crime event, and later, to correctly identify the criminal from a lineup. Early on, eyewitness studies indicated that increased stress and arousal have deleterious effects on memory encoding and thus lead to poorer eyewitness performance. In a classic study, Stern (1939) exposed an entire class to a staged argument between two confederate students with one student drawing a gun on the other. The arousing event elicited strong emotional reactions from the participants which inhibited their cognition, resulting in poorer memory representations of the event. Contemporary researchers (e.g., Deffenbacher, Bornstein, Penrod, & McGorty, 2004; Ihlbk, Lve, Eilertsen, & Magnussen, 2003; Loftus & Burns, 1982) have reached similar conclusions. For instance, a meta-analysis by Deffenbacher et al. (2004) found considerable support for the hypothesis that high levels of stress negatively impact eyewitness identication accuracy and recall of person and event details related to the crime. Overall, witnesses in high-stress conditions produced lower rates of identication accuracy and recalled fewer crime and criminal details than witnesses in low-stress conditions (Deffenbacher et al., 2004). Such outcomes could be related to attentional narrowing (i.e., a reduction in the range of cues a person attends to) that is hypothesized to occur with heightened physiological arousal (Easterbrook, 1959). It is suggested that this attentional narrowing reduces eyewitness identication accuracy and recall accuracy given that witnesses are forced to attend only to the most salient or central (in contrast to peripheral; Christianson, 1992) aspects of the arousing event (Dobson & Markham, 1992). For instance, the weapon focus effect (i.e., the tendency for witnesses to remember the weapon but not the perpetrator's physical appearance; Loftus, Loftus, & Messo, 1987) is consistent with the Easterbrook hypothesis. On the other hand, the literature to date also acknowledges the view of enhanced memory formation in response to events that are perceived to be stressful and emotionally arousing (Canli, Zhao, Brewer, Gabrieli, & Cahill, 2000; Gold, 1992; Rolls, 1990). For instance, in a case study by Yuille and Cutshall (1986) that involved interviewing multiple witnesses to an actual shooting two days after the event and again four to ve months later, it was found that witnesses who reported higher stress had better memories for descriptive details than those who reported lower stress. Witnesses who reported the highest amount of stress showed a mean accuracy of 93% in the initial interview and 88% in the follow-up interview. In contrast, those who reported lower stress had an accuracy rate of 75% for both the initial and follow-up interviews. In another study involving child witnesses, Goodman et al. (1991) videotaped three- to seven-year-olds while receiving their inoculations and examined their memory for this stressful event. They found that children who were the most stressed about the situation recalled more details about their experiences compared to others. Such ndings were conrmed by Christianson (1992) in a meta-analytic review of the effects of emotional stress on eyewitness memory; not much evidence supporting the view that emotional stress has a debilitating effect on eyewitness memory was found. Instead, it was concluded that, overall, memory for negative emotional events was better than that for neutral events (Christianson, 1992). Various animal (e.g., Roozendaal, 2000) and human studies involving pharmacological manipulations (e.g., Buchanan & Lovallo, 2001; Cahill & Alkire, 2003) have provided abundant evidence that the enhanced memory for emotional events is due to an interaction between endogenous stress hormones, such as epinephrine and cortisol (corticosterone in rats), and amygdala activity (i.e., a brain region that mediates the inuence of stress hormones on memory consolidation; McGaugh, 2000). Stress hormones released during emotional arousal are important for allowing the signicance of an experience to regulate the strength of memory consolidation of that experience (McGaugh, 2000). Studies involving a pre-training administration of cortisol (Buchanan & Lovallo, 2001) or a post-training administration of epinephrine (Cahill & Alkire, 2003; Cahill et al., 2003) have indicated that endogenous stress hormones enhance later memory for emotionally arousing stimuli but not for emotionally neutral stimuli. However, emotional arousal failed to enhance long-term memory among patients with selective lesions of the amygdala (LaBar & Phelps, 1998), thus demonstrating the critical role that it plays in memory consolidation and long-term retention. The improved acquisition and consolidation of memories due to the interaction of the adrenergic system (i.e., neurobiological system activated during arousing situations that releases stress hormones) and amygdala activation may be benecial in an eyewitness context. A crime event will typically, if not always, pose a signicant threat to the individual and may therefore elicit the release of endogenous stress hormones that, in turn, may facilitate their memory for details related to the crime. The research available thus far presents two conicting views concerning memories for emotional events. While some researchers argue that stress and/or arousal may have a detrimental effect on memory, others argue for an enhancing effect. Given that additional research is needed to settle this debate, one of the primary goals of the present study is to investigate the effects of stress and arousal on memory that would hopefully bring us a step closer to a resolution. 1.2. Mode of target exposure: Live versus videotaped crime Another issue of contention related to the effects of stress on memory that is highly relevant to eyewitness research is the use of live versus videotaped crime simulations in experimental eyewitness studies. According to Ihlbk et al. (2003), laboratory experiments in general and actual forensic contexts differ in two important ways that challenge the ecological validity of laboratory-based research, particularly those that utilize videotaped crime simulations. First, most real-life violent crimes are traumatic events that are likely to generate higher levels of emotional arousal that are difcult to induce within the connes of the laboratory. Taking the issue of violence in the mass media as an example, the National Television Violence Study (1997) reported that viewers who were exposed to crimes on television were not concerned about their own personal safety or for the safety of others. Viewers were also aware that they were far removed from the violence in the comfort of their homes and thus, were not faced with the dilemma of trying to decide what course of action would be the best response in that

432

J.D. Pozzulo et al. / International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 31 (2008) 430437

situation. In contrast, when witnessing a live crime, witnesses may worry about their personal well-being or of others nearby. Hence, even when videos of violent or highly realistic crimes are shown to participants in the laboratory, there still exists a large gap between watching a video in the secure surroundings of the laboratory and viewing it in a real-life context (Yuille & Daylen, 1988). Second, laboratory witnesses who watch a video are typically passive observers that have a uniform view of the crime event (Tollestrup et al., 1994). In contrast, witnesses in real-life are in different geographical positions with respect to the actions of the perpetrator(s) and thus, do not have the same opportunity to observe the events that transpire in its entirety. To begin with, witnesses may realize that a crime is occurring at different times and thus perceive and remember the event through different time frames. Further, in violent crimes such as an armed robbery, some witnesses may be forced down to the oor, thus effectively terminating witnesses' ability to observe the perpetrator(s) (Ihlbk et al., 2003). It is thus important for further research to be conducted in order to nd out how generalizable laboratory studies are to real-life crime and how eyewitness memory differs across the two situations. Although it is not ethical to submit participants to an actual crime, through carefully staged events in the laboratory, we can approximate, to some degree, the conditions of a real crime and draw conclusions from the results. 1.3. Condence and identication accuracy Another factor of interest that has previously been found to predict or postdict (Smith, Lindsay, & Pryke, 2000) identication accuracy is witness condence. When eyewitnesses choose someone from a lineup, their condence in having correctly identied the perpetrator is assumed to be derived from the match between the lineup member and the witness' memory of the true perpetrator. Therefore, it is assumed that the more condent witnesses are, the more reliable they are. Consequently, the judicial system has placed a high value on condence as an indicator of eyewitness reliability. For instance, the U.S. Supreme Court (Neil vs. Biggers, 1972) has stated that the condence of a witness should be an important consideration in evaluating the reliability of a witness' testimony. Further, studies (e.g., Cutler et al., 1990) have shown how juries rely on witness condence as an indicator of witness credibility. However, research has indicated that following a lineup decision, eyewitness condence can vary in response to a variety of factors and thus, is not the best predictor of identication accuracy (Luus & Wells, 1994). Some studies suggest that there exists a moderate condenceaccuracy (CA) relationship that varies as a function of exposure duration (i.e., longer exposure durations to the target yielded stronger CA relationships; Bothwell, Deffenbacher, & Brigham, 1987) or presence/absence of target (i.e., CA relationship found only in target-present condition; Memon, Hope, & Bull, 2003). On the other hand, other researchers (e.g., Wells & Lindsay, 1985) argue that there is little or no correlation between witness condence and identication accuracy, especially when witnesses are faced with a target-absent lineup (Read, 1995). The inconsistent ndings thus far indicate that more research is needed to clarify the CA relationship. A further goal of the present study is to explore whether the CA relationship differs when a witness sees a crime live versus on videotape. 1.4. Present study The present study was designed to investigate the effects of the following factors on identication accuracy: live versus video exposure of the crime, stress and arousal induced when viewing the crime, and witness condence. It was hypothesized that differences in mode of target exposure would lead to differing levels of emotional arousal that would consequently affect eyewitness performance. Several predictions were formulated to test this hypothesis. First, it was predicted that participants in the live crime condition would produce lower identication accuracy rates than participants in the video condition. Second, it was predicted that those in the live condition would report higher levels of stress and/or arousal than participants who viewed the same event on videotape. It also was predicted that participants who reported higher levels of stress and/or arousal would have lower identication accuracy rates than those who report lower levels of stress and/or arousal. Finally, measures of witness condence were also obtained to explore how it interacts with variations in mode of target exposure and identication accuracy. It was predicted that accurate witnesses would report higher condence in their decisions than inaccurate witnesses. 2. Method 2.1. Participants One hundred and four undergraduate students (age range: 1756 years, M = 20.0 years, SD = 4.1) were recruited from a university in Eastern Ontario, Canada. Participants received course credit in exchange for their participation. 2.2. Design A 2 (mode of target exposure: live versus video) 2 (presence of target: present versus absent) between-subjects factorial design was used. The dependent measure was identication accuracy (i.e., correct identications for target-present lineups and correct rejections for target absent lineups). Participants were randomly assigned into one of the four conditions (i.e., live targetpresent, live target-absent, video target-present, and video target-absent).

J.D. Pozzulo et al. / International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 31 (2008) 430437

433

2.3. Materials 2.3.1. Live exposure A staged theft was conducted in the laboratory to constitute the live exposure condition. The study was presented to potential participants as a marketing research project. The true purpose of the study was concealed in order to simulate the unexpectedness of a real-life crime. A participant and a male confederate (posing as another participant) entered the laboratory together. While engaging both in conversation, the experimenter jostled a small table, knocking down her purse. The experimenter repositioned her purse on the table and excused herself to get materials for the study. Once the experimenter left the room, the confederate engaged the participant in conversation. After approximately 1 min, the confederate jumped up, grabbed the purse off the table, and ran out of the room. 2.3.2. Video exposure The staged theft as described above was reenacted and recorded. The same male confederate as in the live condition was used and a female research assistant played the role of the student participant. 2.3.3. Stress-Arousal Checklist The Stress-Arousal Checklist (SACL; Mackay, Cox, Burrows, & Lazzerini, 1978) is a 30-item self-report measure consisting of adjectives commonly used to describe one's psychological experience of stress. Two dimensions are examined: stress (18 items, = .90), a subjective general sense of well-being that consists of feelings ranging from pleasant to unpleasant in relation to the external environment; and arousal (12 items, = .80) that consists of feelings ranging from wakefulness to drowsiness, viewed as ongoing somatic or autonomic activity. Participants were required to rate each adjective in accordance with the intensity of their feelings which could either be positive (e.g., stimulated) or negative (e.g., sluggish). The range of scores is 0 to 14 for stress and 0 to 11 for arousal. 2.3.4. Description form Participants were asked to ll out a description form that consisted of two questions about the event that they had just witnessed. This was intended as a brief ller task (approximately 10 min) prior to the presentation of the lineup and will not be discussed further. 2.3.5. Lineup construction Photos were taken of volunteers who resembled the confederate to construct a six-person photo lineup. All photos were head and upper body shots taken against a plain white background, measuring approximately 4 6 in. Each photographed person was asked to adopt a neutral expression to provide consistency across photos. From the assortment of photographs rated on a scale from 1 (not at all similar) to 6 (highly similar) by three independent judges, six photographs were selected that most closely matched the general appearance of the target (i.e., short dark brown hair, fair complexion, etc.). The selected photos were further examined to ensure that they were not too similar to the target in order to avoid making identication extremely difcult. A simultaneous lineup procedure was used in the present study given that it remains the most commonly employed lineup procedure in North America (Levi, 2006). All lineup members are presented to the witness at the same time. In the target-present condition, the lineup includes the guilty suspect and a set of foils (i.e., innocent lineup members used as distractors). The three possible outcomes for a target-present lineup are: correct identication (i.e., identication of the guilty suspect), foil identication (i.e., identication of a lineup member known to be innocent), or false rejection (i.e., failure to identify the guilty suspect resulting in the rejection of the lineup). In contrast, a target-absent lineup includes an innocent suspect and a set of foils. The three possible outcomes are: correct rejection (i.e., correctly rejecting the lineup), foil identication, and false identication (i.e., identication of an innocent suspect). For the present study, the target-present lineup included a photo of the confederate while the target-absent lineup replaced his photo with that of a similar looking other. 2.3.6. Lineup response form Participants were asked to ll out a lineup response form. Identication responses consisted of seven boxed options: choice of boxed numbers one to six that corresponded to a lineup member, and an option of selecting box number seven for a not here option. Participants were instructed to place a check mark in the box corresponding to their decision. On the same form, participants were asked to rate how condent they were in their identication decision on a 5-point condence scale (1 = Not at all condent to 5 = Extremely condent).

Table 1 Identication rates (n) as a function of mode of target exposure (target-present) Mode of target exposure Identication rates Correct identication Video Live 0.80 (20) 0.83 (24) Incorrect decision 0.20 (5) 0.17 (5)

434

J.D. Pozzulo et al. / International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 31 (2008) 430437

Table 2 Identication rates (n) as a function of mode of target exposure (target-absent) Mode of target exposure Identication rates Correct rejection Video Live 0.48 (12) 0.28 (7) Incorrect decision 0.52 (13) 0.72 (18)

Table 3 Mean stress level (SD) as a function of mode of target exposure and identication accuracy (combined for target-present and -absent lineups) Mode of target exposure Mean stress levels Correct decision Video Live 3.10 (3.29) 14.40 (3.01) Incorrect decision 5.29 (4.55) 14.05 (2.72)

2.4. Procedure Participants were tested individually in the laboratory. Participants provided written, informed consent to participate in this study approved by the university Ethics Committee in accordance with The Tri-Council Policy Statement on Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (Canadian Institute of Health Research, Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada, and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, 1998). After witnessing the crime, the experimenter informed the participant of the true nature of the study and consent was verbally reestablished at this point. All participants re-consented and were asked to ll out the SACL and the ller description form. Upon completion, participants were randomly assigned to view one of the two lineups and asked to ll out the lineup response form. After completing the entire study, participants were thanked and debriefed. 3. Results Data were divided into those who saw a target-present versus target-absent lineup given that the accuracy decision differs for each (Pozzulo & Lindsay, 1999). Specically, in the target-present condition, a correct response was making a correct identication while incorrect responses were false positives (i.e., choosing a foil) or misses (i.e., not choosing anyone). In the target-absent condition, a correct response involved rejecting the lineup while incorrect responses were false positives. 3.1. Target-present lineup A chi-square analysis was used to examine the effect of mode of target exposure on identication accuracy. The correct identication rate as a function of mode of exposure was not signicant. Participants in the live condition were no more likely to correctly identify the perpetrator (.83) than those in the video condition (.80), 2 (1, n = 54) = .068, p = .53, = .04. See Table 1 for identication rates as a function of mode of target exposure for target-present lineups. 3.2. Target-absent lineup Chi-square was calculated to determine whether a difference existed in correct rejection rates between the live and video condition. The correct rejection rate as a function of mode of target exposure was not signicant, 2 (1, n = 50) = 2.12, p = .24, = .21. Participants were no more likely to correctly reject the lineup when viewing a videotaped crime (.48) compared to the live crime (.28). However, given the large eta value, it is likely that there was insufcient power to detect the difference between these two groups. See Table 2 for identication rates as a function of mode of target exposure for target-absent lineups. 3.3. Stress and arousal An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to examine differences in levels of stress and arousal as a function of mode of target exposure and identication accuracy (collapsed across target-present and target-absent lineups).

Table 4 Mean arousal level (SD) as a function of mode of target exposure and identication accuracy (combined for target-present and -absent lineups) Mode of target exposure Mean arousal levels Correct decision Video Live 5.91 (2.78) 9.23 (2.07) Incorrect decision 7.88 (2.85) 8.95 (2.70)

J.D. Pozzulo et al. / International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 31 (2008) 430437 Table 5 Mean condence level (SD) as a function of mode of target exposure and identication accuracy (target-present) Mode of target exposure Mean condence levels Correct identication Video Live 4.10 (0.72) 4.04 (0.62)

435

Incorrect decision 3.20 (0.84) 3.20 (0.84)

Table 6 Mean condence level (SD) as a function of mode of target exposure and identication accuracy (target-absent) Mode of target exposure Mean condence levels Correct rejection Video Live 3.58 (0.67) 3.00 (0.82) Incorrect decision 3.31 (0.63) 3.22 (0.88)

3.3.1. Stress When witnessing a live crime, participants reported signicantly greater stress levels (M = 14.25) than those who witnessed the crime on video (M = 3.89), F(1, 95) = 209.92, p b .001. No other signicant effects were found. See Table 3 for the mean stress level of participants as a function of mode of target exposure and identication accuracy. 3.3.2. Arousal Witnesses of the live crime reported signicantly higher levels of arousal (M = 9.11) than those in the video condition (M = 6.59), F(1, 98) = 17.31, p b .001. There also was a signicant interaction between mode of target exposure and identication accuracy, F(1, 98) = 4.53, p b .05. Specically, arousal level did not differ for accurate (M = 9.23) versus inaccurate (M = 8.95) witnesses in the live condition. However, in the video condition, accurate witnesses reported lower levels of arousal (M = 5.91) than inaccurate witnesses (M = 7.88). See Table 4 for the mean arousal level of participants as a function of mode of target exposure and identication accuracy. 3.4. Condence and accuracy An ANOVA was conducted to examine the differences in lineup decision condence as a function of mode of target exposure and identication accuracy. Results were divided into target-present and -absent lineups. 3.4.1. Target-present lineup Participants who correctly identied the target were signicantly more condent (M = 4.07) than those who made an incorrect decision (M = 3.20) regardless of target view, F(1,50) = 12.66, p b .001. See Table 5 for the mean condence level of participants as a function of mode of target exposure and identication accuracy for target-present lineups. 3.4.2. Target-absent lineup Participants in the target-absent condition reported a comparable level of condence regardless of accuracy (M = 3.37 for accurate witnesses and M = 3.26 for inaccurate witnesses) and mode of target exposure, F(1, 46) = 0.014, ns. See Table 6 for the mean condence level of participants as a function of mode of target exposure and identication accuracy for target-absent lineups. 4. Discussion The present study examined the inuence of mode of target exposure on eyewitness identication accuracy. Contrary to the prediction that witnesses viewing a target live would yield lower identication accuracy rates than witnesses viewing a target on video, mode of target exposure did not have a signicant effect on identication accuracy across target-present and -absent lineups. There was however, a trend for witnesses to correctly reject the target-absent lineup in the video condition more so than in the live condition. Thus, despite the argument made by a number of researchers (Ihlbk et al., 2003; Tollestrup et al., 1994; Yuille, 1993) that laboratory and live contexts differ in ways that lead witnesses to remember events differently, the ndings of the present study suggest that eyewitness identication accuracy may not be greatly affected by mode of target exposure (i.e., live versus video), although the rate of correct rejections may be overestimated using a videotaped methodology. Actual witnesses may be more likely to make an identication (i.e., pick someone out as the criminal) in a real-world context than in the lab study using a videotape. An important caveat pointed out by an anonymous reviewer is that our live crime simulation may not have entailed sufcient stress to see a differential effect. The fact that participants were told that it was a crime simulation before they gave their responses might account for the non-signicant ndings when mode of exposure was varied. In addition, given that the description form was given to the participants simply as a brief ller task and therefore was not analyzed for accuracy or length of detail, it is unclear whether participants' state of mind (i.e., ability to quietly think through and/or visualize the witnessed crime)

436

J.D. Pozzulo et al. / International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 31 (2008) 430437

during this task inuenced their subsequent performance in the lineup task. Therefore, future studies should consider including an analysis of descriptions provided by witnesses and investigate whether these responses facilitate identication accuracy. The prediction that higher levels of stress and/or arousal would lead to poorer identication accuracy among participants was supported in part. Regardless of target view, it was found that stress level had no signicant effect on the identication accuracy of witnesses. On the other hand, when examining arousal level, there was a signicant interaction between mode of target exposure and identication accuracy. It was found that the more aroused participants in the video condition were (for both target-present and -absent conditions), the lower the identication accuracy rate. This nding is consistent with previous eyewitness research (for a review, see Deffenbacher et al., 2004) that indicated that increased arousal leads to poorer eyewitness performance. The Easterbrook hypothesis (1959) posits that poor eyewitness identication could be attributed to increased arousal that leads to a reduction in the range of cues a person attends to. Although this was supported by the data obtained from those in the video condition, results from participants in the live condition did not support this view. Interestingly, the live condition results indicated that while identication accuracy was low for those who viewed the target-absent lineup, those who viewed a target-present lineup yielded higher identication accuracy rates. A possible explanation for this stems from Eysenck's arousal theory. According to Eysenck, there is an optimal level of arousal and performance deteriorates as one becomes more or less aroused than this optimal level (Reeve, 2001). At very low or very high levels, performance is low, but at a more optimal mid-level of arousal, performance is maximized. Given the relatively non-violent nature of the crime in the present study, it is unlikely that the participants in the live condition were overly aroused; rather, it seems more likely that they were close to their optimum level of arousal. As such, it is possible that they encoded more of the perpetrator's features, thus performing better on the identication task than the video participants who might have experienced less threat or less arousal. However, as suggested by an anonymous reviewer, it is important to acknowledge the limitation that even among participants in the same condition, there may be large inter-individual differences in level of arousal that may affect how reliable they would be compared to other witnesses viewing the same crime. For instance, a good witness in a low-arousing situation may be a poor witness in a highly arousing situation and vice versa. As such, it is difcult to draw rm conclusions regarding the eyewitness performance of witnesses as related to arousal levels. Future studies should investigate how eyewitness performance for witnesses who exhibit similar levels of arousal differ in a low versus high arousal situation. In terms of witness condence, the prediction that accurate witnesses would rate themselves as more condent than inaccurate witnesses was supported in part. In the target-present condition, witnesses who correctly identied the culprit were more condent than those who made inaccurate decisions. The CA relationship however, did not hold for target-absent lineups and thus, is consistent with previous research that found a moderate CA relationship only under target-present conditions (Memon et al., 2003). Smith et al. (2000) suggested that combining witness condence with other factors could signicantly improve the ability to discriminate between accurate and inaccurate witnesses. In their study, witnesses were categorized into accurate and inaccurate groups 62.3% of the time using condence alone, while this increased to 75.2% when other factors (i.e., decision time, lineup fairness, etc.) were included in the analysis. Thus, although witness condence on its own may not be the best predictor of identication accuracy, it may still prove to be useful when combined with other important factors. 5. Implications The current study raises an important issue of whether identication rates and patterns using videotaped exposure of a target mimic live exposure. The data suggest that correct identication rates may be similar across different exposures however, correct rejection rates may differ. Using videotaped methodology, researchers may be overestimating the rate at which lineups are rejected. Moreover, this pattern should raise serious concerns with the justice system in that the rate of false identications may be higher in the real world than the lab. Importantly, it would be critical to use lineup procedures that provide the best protection against innocent suspects (e.g., fair lineups, unbiased lineup instructions, etc.) to reduce the likelihood of false identications (e.g., Wells et al., 1998). References
Bothwell, R. K., Deffenbacher, K. A., & Brigham, J. C. (1987). Correlation of eyewitness accuracy and condence: optimality hypothesis revisited. Journal of Applied Psychology, 72, 691695. Buchanan, T. W., & Lovallo, W. R. (2001). Enhanced memory for emotional material following stress-level cortisol treatment in humans. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 26, 307317. Cahill, L., & Alkire, M. T. (2003). Epinephrine enhancement of human memory consolidation: Interaction with arousal at encoding. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 79, 21942198. Cahill, L., Gorski, L., & Le, K. (2003). Enhanced human memory consolidation with post-learning stress: Interaction with the degree of arousal at encoding. Learning & Memory, 10, 42704274. Canadian Institute of Health Research, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (1998). Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans. (with 2000, 2002, 2005 amendments). Canli, T., Zhao, Z., Brewer, J., Gabrieli, J. D., & Cahill, L. (2000). Event-related activation in the human amygdala associates with later memory for individual emotional experience. Journal of Neuroscience, 20, RC99. Christianson, S. A. (1992). Emotional stress and eyewitness memory: A critical review. Psychological Bulletin, 112, 284309. Cutler, B. L., Penrod, S. D., & Dexter, H. R. (1990). Juror sensitivity to eyewitness identication evidence. Law & Human Behavior, 14, 185191. Deffenbacher, K. A., Bornstein, B. H., Penrod, S. D., & McGorty, E. K. (2004). A meta-analytic review of the effects of high stress on eyewitness memory. Law and Human Behavior, 28, 687706. Dobson, M., & Markham, R. (1992). Individual differences in anxiety level and eyewitness memory. Journal of General Psychology, 119, 343350. Easterbrook, J. A. (1959). The effect of emotion on cue utilization and the organization of behaviour. Psychological Review, 66, 183201.

J.D. Pozzulo et al. / International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 31 (2008) 430437

437

Gold, P. E. (1992). Modulation of memory processing: Enhancement of memory in rodents and humans. In N. Butters & L. R. Squire (Eds.), Neuropsychology of memory (pp. 402414). New York: Guilford Press. Goodman, G. S., Hirschman, J., Hepps, D., & Rudy, L. (1991). Children's memory for a stressful event. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 37, 109158. Ihlebaek, C., Love, T., Eilertsen, D. E., & Magnussen, S. (2003). Memory for a staged criminal event witnessed live and on video. Memory, 11, 319327. LaBar, K. S., & Phelps, E. A. (1998). Arousal-mediated memory consolidation: Role of the medial temporal lobe in humans. Psychological Science, 9, 490493. Levi, A. M. (2006). An analysis of multiple choices in MSL lineups, and a comparison with simultaneous and sequential ones. Psychology, Crime, and Law, 12, 273285. Loftus, E. F. (1979). Eyewitness testimony. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Loftus, E. F., & Burns, T. E. (1982). Mental shock can produce retrograde amnesia. Memory & Cognition, 10, 318323. Loftus, E. F., Loftus, G. R., & Messo, J. (1987). Some facts about weapon focus. Law and Human Behavior, 11, 5562. Luus, C. A. E., & Wells, G. L. (1994). The malleability of eyewitness condence: Co-witness and perseverance effects. Journal of Applied Psychology, 79, 714723. Mackay, C., Cox, T., Burrows, G., & Lazzerini, T. (1978). An inventory for the measurement of self-reported stress and arousal. British Journal of Social & Clinical Psychology, 17, 283284. Malpass, R. S., Sporer, S. L., & Koehnken, G. (1996). Conclusion. In S. L. Sporer, R. S. Malpass, & G. Koehnken (Eds.), Psychological issues in eyewitness identication (pp. 295300). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. McGaugh, J. L. (2000). Memory: A century of consolidation. Science, 14, 248251. Memon, A., Hope, L., & Bull, R. (2003). Exposure duration: Effects on eyewitness accuracy and condence. British Journal of Psychology, 94, 339354. National Television Violence Study. (1997). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Neil v. Biggers, 409 U. S. 188 (1972). Penrod, S. D., Fulero, S. M., & Cutler, B. L. (1995). Expert psychological testimony on eyewitness reliability before and after Daubert: The state of the law and the science. Behavioral Science and the Law, 13, 229259. Pozzulo, J. D., & Lindsay, R. C. L. (1999). Elimination lineups: An improved identication procedure for child witnesses. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84, 167176. Read, J. D. (1995). The availability heuristic in person identication: The some times misleading consequences of enhanced contextual information. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 9, 91121. Reeve, J. (2001). Understanding motivation and emotion. Toronto: John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Rolls, E. T. (1990). A theory of emotion and its application to understanding the neural basis of emotion. Cognition and Emotion, 4, 161190. Roozendaal, B. (2000). Glucocorticoids and the regulation of memory consolidation. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 25, 213238. Smith, S. M., Lindsay, R. C. L., & Pryke, S. (2000). Postdictors of eyewitness errors: Can false identications be diagnosed. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85, 542550. Stern, W. (1939). The psychology of testimony. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 34, 320. Tollestrup, P., Turtle, J. W., & Yuille, J. C. (1994). Actual victims and witnesses to robbery and fraud: An archival analysis. In F. D. Ross, J. D. Read, & M. P. Toglia (Eds.), Adult eyewitness testimony. Current trends and developments (pp. 144160). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wells, G. L., & Lindsay, R. C. L. (1985). Methodological notes on the condence-accuracy relationship in eyewitness identications. Journal of Applied Psychology, 70, 413419. Wells, G. L., Small, M., Penrod, S., Malpass, R. S., Fulero, S. M., & Brimacombe, C. A. E. (1998). Eyewitness identication procedures: Recommendations for lineups and photo spreads. Law and Human Behavior, 22, 603647. Yuille, J. C. (1993). We must study forensic eyewitnesses to know about them. American Psychologist, 48, 572573. Yuille, J. C., & Cutshall, J. L. (1986). A case study of eyewitness memory of a crime. Journal of Applied Psychology, 71, 291301. Yuille, J. C., & Daylen, J. (1988). The impact of traumatic events on eyewitness memory. In C. P. Thompson, D. J. Douglass, J. D. Read, & D. Bruce (Eds.), Eyewitness memory: Theoretical and applied perspectives (pp. 155178). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Yuille, J. C., & Wells, G. L. (1991). Concerns about the application of research ndings: The issue of ecological validity. In J. Doris, (Ed.), The suggestibility of children's recollections: Implications for eyewitness testimony (pp. 118128). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.