Preventing injustice: how psychology of testimony may help understanding and preventing false recognition of suspects

Abstract

Suspect recognition has a major probative value; howe-ver, an innocent can be recognized as a perpetrator. A false recognition may occur due to normal memory functioning that may impair the encoding of the perpe-trator’s face or to forgetting stored information. During suspect recognition, the way he or she is presented, and the instructions in the procedures of recognition may also increase the probability of false identification. The paper aims to present how the cognitive process and procedures used for obtaining the testimony may lead to false recognition. Thus, we present literature recom-mended procedures, aiming to reduce the probability of false recognition.