Beyond the confidence-accuracy relation: A multiple-reflector-variable approach to postdicting accuracy on eyewitness lineups.

Abstract

We examined whether the potential to distinguish between accurate and inaccurate decisions on eyewitness lineups could be improved by combining information from three witness behaviors: confidence, decision time, and the language that witnesses use to justify their lineup decisions. We assessed the postdictive potential of these variables for both positive identifications and lineup rejections on both simultaneous and sequential lineups. All three behaviors independently postdicted the accuracy of both positive identifications and lineup rejections for both simultaneous and sequential lineups. The potential to distinguish between accurate and inaccurate lineup decisions was maximized by considering all three variables. Interestingly, the classifier trained to distinguish the language of accurate and inaccurate witnesses appeared to recover a distinction between use of absolute- and relative-judgment strategies. For both simultaneous and sequential lineups, accurate decisions were accompanied by absolute language and inaccurate decisions were accompanied by relative language. The applied implications of this work are clear-accurate witnesses are confident, fast, and reference an absolute-judgment strategy. This work also advances theory on why sequential lineups lead to worse discriminability than do simultaneous lineups. Sequential lineups do not increase use of absolute-judgment strategies, but might make it more difficult to determine the strongest match to memory. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).