Children’s identification of unfamiliar voices on both target-present and target-absent lineups
Children’s identification of unfamiliar voices on both target-present and target-absent lineups
A robust finding from the eyewitness literature is that children are as accurate as adults on target-present lineups from the age of five years, whereas they continue to make an erroneous false positive identification from a target-absent lineup up until around fourteen years of age (Pozzulo & Lindsay, 1998). The current study explores whether the same pattern occurs when voices are used instead of faces. A total of 334 participants from six age groups (6-7-year-olds, 8-9-year-olds, 10-11-year-olds, 12-13-year-olds, 14-15-year-olds and adults) listened to a 30 second audio clip of an unfamiliar voice and were then presented with either a six person target-present or target-absent voice lineup. Overall, participants were more accurate with target-present than target-absent lineups. Moreover, performance on target-present lineups showed adult-like levels of attainment by 8-9 years of age. In contrast, performance on target-absent lineups was extremely poor, with all age groups tending to make a false identification. Confidence was higher when participants made correct rather than incorrect decisions for both types of lineup and this did not change with increasing age. Given these results, both child and adult earwitness evidence needs to be treated with considerable caution.
Calderwood, Lesley
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McKay, D R
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Stevenage, Sarah
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23 April 2019
Calderwood, Lesley
fedfd4b7-5ce0-444f-a422-5e2e337a5760
McKay, D R
aa9ffbe0-3fb7-40f7-88be-7f3c839fc2b9
Stevenage, Sarah
493f8c57-9af9-4783-b189-e06b8e958460
Calderwood, Lesley, McKay, D R and Stevenage, Sarah
(2019)
Children’s identification of unfamiliar voices on both target-present and target-absent lineups.
Psychology, Crime, and Law.
(doi:10.1080/1068316X.2019.1597090).
Abstract
A robust finding from the eyewitness literature is that children are as accurate as adults on target-present lineups from the age of five years, whereas they continue to make an erroneous false positive identification from a target-absent lineup up until around fourteen years of age (Pozzulo & Lindsay, 1998). The current study explores whether the same pattern occurs when voices are used instead of faces. A total of 334 participants from six age groups (6-7-year-olds, 8-9-year-olds, 10-11-year-olds, 12-13-year-olds, 14-15-year-olds and adults) listened to a 30 second audio clip of an unfamiliar voice and were then presented with either a six person target-present or target-absent voice lineup. Overall, participants were more accurate with target-present than target-absent lineups. Moreover, performance on target-present lineups showed adult-like levels of attainment by 8-9 years of age. In contrast, performance on target-absent lineups was extremely poor, with all age groups tending to make a false identification. Confidence was higher when participants made correct rather than incorrect decisions for both types of lineup and this did not change with increasing age. Given these results, both child and adult earwitness evidence needs to be treated with considerable caution.
Text
Calderwood et al_Childrens Identification of Unfamiliar Voices
- Accepted Manuscript
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Accepted/In Press date: 19 February 2019
Published date: 23 April 2019
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Local EPrints ID: 430304
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/430304
ISSN: 1068-316X
PURE UUID: 2674183d-295d-4cfd-ad93-25e060dbf936
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Date deposited: 25 Apr 2019 16:30
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 07:47
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Author:
Lesley Calderwood
Author:
D R McKay
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