Automatic recognition, elimination strategy and familiarity feeling: Cognitive processes predict accuracy from lineup identifications

• Published in: Consciousness and cognition Vol. 98; p. 103266
• Main Authors: Wittwer, Tania, Tredoux, Colin G., Py, Jacques, Nortje, Alicia, Kempen, Kate, Launay, Celine
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01-02-2022; Elsevier BV
• Subjects: Automatic decision strategy; Cognition & reasoning; Cognitive ability; Cognitive decision processes; Decision making; Elimination decision strategy; Factor analysis; Familiarity; Familiarity search decision strategy; Identification; Identification; Automatic decision strategy; Elimination decision strategy; Cognitive decision processes; Familiarity search decision strategy
• ISSN: 1053-8100; 1090-2376
• DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2021.103266

•Decision strategies during a lineup identification give important cues to accuracy.•Retrospective self-awareness interview gives important access to decision strategies.•Identifications explained by an automatic recognition are more likely to be accurate.•Feeling or lack of familiarity is interestingly related to identification accuracy.
Identifying a suspect is critical for successful criminal investigations. Research focused on two decision processes during lineup identification, namely ‘automatic recognition’ and ‘elimination’ strategy, and their relation to identification accuracy. In this article, we report two experiments conducted in France and South Africa, which further examine strategies in eyewitness decision-making. We first used a modified-RSA (Retrospective Self Awareness; Kassin, 1985) interview method to construct questionnaires to have finer-grained measures of cognitive processes involved in lineup identification. Studies 1 and 2 tested the relevance of the questionnaire in each of the countries, and factor analysis yielded three common factors among the countries, namely the expected ‘automatic recognition’, and ‘elimination’ strategies, as well as an additional familiarity related factor. Logistic regressions showed that witnesses who reported using a familiarity feeling and/or an ‘elimination strategy’ to conduct their decision, were less likely to make correct decisions than witnesses who reported using ‘automatic recognition’.