Lindsay & Bellinger (1999). Alternatives to the sequential lineup: The importance of controlling the pictures

Lindsay, R.C.L. & Bellinger, K. (1999). Alternatives to the sequential lineup: The importance of controlling the pictures. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84, 315-321.

This article compares various approaches that have been suggested for reducing the problem of witnesses using relative judgment strategies.

Relative Judgment Strategy: Pick them member of the lineup who looks most like the perp relative to the other lineup members. Relative judgment strategies are bad because in any lineup there will be some member who is most similar to the perp.
Absolute Judgment Strategy: Compare each lineup member individually to your memory for the perp. If none of them meets your threshold then reject all the lineup members.

Two Main Approaches for conducting lineups and photospreads.

Simultaneous: Present all the lineup members at the same time and ask witness to identify the suspect if he or she is present. It has been argued that simultaneous presentation of lineup members encourages the use of relative judgment strategies.
Sequential: In sequential lineups each member is presented one at a time. The witness makes a judgment about whether the person is the perp, and then the next lineup member is shown. It has been argued that sequential lineups increase reliance on absolute judgment strategies.
*Research suggests that sequential lineups decrease false identifications without decreases accurate identifications.

There have recently been recommendations and empirical evidence suggesting that double blind presentation procedures should be used to reduce the probability that the investigator might unconsciously cue the witness to the identity of the suspect. This has led to the development of some procedures in which the witness self-administers the lineup.

This article compares various variations (if you will) in conducting simultaneous and sequential lineups.

Method

Participants watched a short videoclip in which a purse snatching occurred.
Participants then tried to identify the perpetrator from a six person perpetrator absent photo-array
After their identification they indicated their confidence
Participants indicated whether they had used an absolute or a relative judgment process

Simultaneous
Standard	The standard procedure is used in which witness view six photographs simultaneously.
Angled	Like the standard, except the photographs are set up so that they are in different allignments. The idea is that this should make it difficult to compare the pictures with each other and should result in more absolute judgments.
Instructed	Like the standard, except that witnesses are told they should use an absolute judgment strategy.
Sequential
Standard	Participants are shown one photograph at a time and asked to make a decision of whether that person is the perp
Stack	The witness is given a stack of photographs and told to go through them one at a time and for each one determine whether the person is the perp. This is meant to eliminate the problem of interviewer bias
Album	The witness is given a photo album and told to go through them one at a time and for each one determine whether the person is the perp. This is meant to eliminate the problem of interviewer bias

Results Relative Judgments

Witnesses in the simultaneous lineup conditions were more likely to report using relative judgment strategies than witnesses in the sequential lineup conditions.
Surprisingly witnesses were somewhat more likely to make relative judgments in the angled rather than the other two simultaneous conditions, although this difference was not significant at p < .05.

Correct Rejections

Overall the sequential lineup conditions had a higher correct rejection rate than the simultaneous lineups.
The standard sequential lineup was better than all of the simultaneous lineups, as well as the stack sequential lineup. It was better than the self administer photo album but this difference was not significant at p < .05
The angled procedure was a dismal failure. It produced fewer correct rejections than any other method, although the difference between it and the standard simultaneous procedure was not significant at p < .05.
Self reported use of the relative judgment processes correlated with false identiifications
Witnesses in the stack and album conditions appeared to be violating the instructions by comparing pictures, looking back and so forth.

	Standard Simultaneous	Angled Simultaneous	Instructed Simultaneous	Standard Sequential	Stack Sequential	Album Sequential
Correct Rejections	66%	39%	71%	96%	75%	80%

Discussion and So Forth

The ID procedure used predicted self reports of whether the witness used relative or absolute judgment strategies.
These self reports predicted the witnesses accuracy.
The standard sequential lineup was better than the stack sequential lineup and the trend was towards it being better than the album too. This appears to be because participant witnesses couldn't be trusted to follow the procedure as instructed.
Possibly the best approach is computerized presentation of lineup photos

University of Arkansas

Department of Psychology

Lampinen Lab

False Memory Reading Group

False Memory Reading Group Summer 2000