Eyewitness identification procedures can be divided into two types : showups and lineups. Although the risk of misidentification in lineups is supposed to be less than that in showups, experimental studies comparing both procedures have not shown that risk in lineups is less. This may be because relative judgments are made in lineups while absolute judgments are formed in showups. Taking this into consideration, we predicted that making an absolute judgment after a relative judgment in lineups decreases false identification, and we conducted the following experiment. A total of 177 undergraduate students performed a photo identification in a showup, a standard lineup, or a 2-step lineup, in which they made an absolute judgment after a relative one. The result showed that the false identification rate in 2-step lineups was less than that in standard lineups. Moreover, the rate of dangerous false identification of an innocent suspect in 2-step lineups was less than that in showups. These results suggest that making an absolute judgment after a relative one decreases false identifications and can reduce false convictions in criminal cases.

特集 : 伊東裕司教授 退職記念号
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