Gary L. Wells , Ph.D.

Mistaken Eyewitness Identification and False Confidence: The Creation of Distorted Retrospective Judgments

Forensic DNA testing has uncovered over 220 convictions of innocent persons and over 75% of these were cases of mistaken eyewitness identification by highly confident witnesses (false confidence). The experimental discovery of the post-identification feedback effect (Wells & Bradfield, 1998), in which false confidence by eyewitnesses is readily created by commonly-practiced yet legal behaviors of lineup administrators, has led to some important reforms. But the psychological processes underlying the post-identification feedback effect are not yet totally understood. Importantly, post-identification feedback not only distorts retrospective confidence (how certain witnesses recall they were in their lineup identification), but also distorts retrospective reports of how good their view was during witnessing, how much attention they paid during witnessing, and numerous other important judgments related to testimony. Current data indicate that the post-identification feedback effect is likely the result of inaccessible cognitive traces to the original information and a resultant inference process in which the feedback is a central cue. Recent data showing that witnesses can moderate their post-identification feedback responses via a post-feedback discrediting manipulation seem to challenge this interpretation, but the moderation appears instead to be more of a result of counterfactual thinking processes rather than accessing earlier cognitive traces.