The Effect of Retention Interval on the Confidence–Accuracy Relationship for Eyewitness Identification

Law Hum Behav (2010) 34:337–347 DOI 10.1007/s10979-009-9192-x
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
The Effect of Retention Interval on the Confidence–Accuracy Relationship for Eyewitness Identification
James Sauer Æ Neil Brewer Æ Tick Zweck Æ Nathan Weber
Published online: 22 July 2009
Ó American Psychology-Law Society/Division 41 of the American Psychological Association 2009
Abstract Recent research using a calibration approach indicates that eyewitness confidence assessments obtained immediately after a positive identification decision provide a useful guide as to the likely accuracy of the identification. This study extended research on the boundary conditions of the confidence–accuracy (CA) relationship by varying the retention interval between encoding and identification test. Participants (N = 1,063) viewed one of five different tar- gets in a community setting and attempted an identification from an 8-person target-present or -absent lineup either immediately or several weeks later. Compared to the immediate condition, the delay condition produced greater overconfidence and lower diagnosticity. However, for choosers at both retention intervals there was a meaningful CA relationship and diagnosticity was much stronger at high than low confidence levels.
Keywords Eyewitness identification Confidence–accuracy Retention interval Calibration
Criminal justice systems often use eyewitness identifica- tion evidence when assessing the likely guilt of a suspect or defendant. Yet, the likelihood of eyewitness identification error is well documented by laboratory- and field-based research demonstrating that, when presented with a lineup
J. Sauer N. Brewer (&) T. Zweck N. Weber
School of Psychology, Flinders University, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide, SA 5001, Australia e-mail: [e-mail]
Present Address:
J. Sauer
Department of Psychology, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK and asked to make an identification decision, witnesses sometimes (a) misidentify

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