Date of Award

2020

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Psychology

Committee Chair

Jeffrey S. Neuschatz

Committee Member

Aurora Torres

Committee Member

Sean Lane

Subject(s)

Witnesses--Psychology, Eyewitness identification, Criminals--Identification, Forensic psychology

Abstract

Clothing bias occurs during a showup when the clothing worn by the suspect matches the clothing of the culprit during a crime. The present study investigated whether a clothing match enhanced identification performance at varying levels of culprit facial view. Witnesses watched a mock-crime video and then made an identification decision from a showup. The results indicated that a clothing match led to an increase in correct and false identifications of the suspect, regardless of facial view. However, the presence of a clothing match did not enhance discriminability. Additionally, there was not a match by facial view interaction. Furthermore, there was not calibration of the confidence-accuracy relationship for match or view. The results are discussed in terms of the outshining hypothesis and the legal implications of showup procedures.

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