Unconscious transference in eyewitness identification

Abstract

To determine whether people tend to mistake for a criminal someone whose face was seen in another context, 50 undergraduates heard a taped story concerning 6 fictitious college students, one of whom had committed the crime of assault. Introduction of each character was accompanied by a photograph of that character. After 3 days, Ss tried to pick out the criminal from a set of 5 photographs; half the Ss were shown a set of 4 new faces and 1 of the actual criminal; the rest were shown a set containing 4 new faces plus 1 of a bystander in the story. Of the 25 Ss tested with the set containing a photo of the actual criminal, 84% (21 Ss) made a correct identification. Of the 25 Ss tested with the set containing the bystander's photo, 60% (15 Ss) chose the bystander and 24% (6 Ss) chose a different incorrect person. Results are discussed in relation to the functioning of human memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved)