BY MATT BEAVER
This study concerns itself with whether or not methods of questioning following an event can lead to an increase in reporting confidence from eyewitnesses. It is generally understood that there is little or no relationship between eyewitness confidence and accuracy, though an eyewitness' confidence can be a determining factor in how much import is attached to their testimony. As such, inflated confidence in an eyewitness report can lead to an artificial reliance on that report's accuracy. Subjects were shown slides of a simulated crime scene, and then participated in 3 experiments following their exposure to the slides. Participants answered forced-choice questions about certain items in the slides, then were subjected to postevent questioning. The postevent questioning led to significantly higher confidence ratings for forced choice questions answered incorrectly in all three experiments, as well as forced choice questions answered correctly in the first experiment. Though the forced choice questioning had a positive effect on the participants' confidence ratings, there was no increase in the participants' accuracy ratings. The researchers put forth a retrieval-fluency hypothesis to explain this phenomenon. The results of the experiments suggest that certain police questioning methods may lead to an artificially enhanced sense of confidence from the eyewitness regarding their testimony in a later trial setting.
REFERENCE
Shaw, John S. (1996). Increases in Eyewitness Confidence Resulting From Postevent Questioning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 2, 126-146.