The effects of the verbal overshadowing effect and independently creating composite sketches on eyewitness identification accuracy

Bedillion, Courtney

The effects of the verbal overshadowing effect and independently creating composite sketches on eyewitness identification accuracy

Persistent URL

http://hdl.handle.net/10456/45385

Author(s)

Bedillion, Courtney

Date Issued

November 28, 2017

Abstract

Eyewitnesses play a pivotal role in the criminal justice system, and often, it takes drastic evidence such as DNA from a crime scene to cause a jury to second-guess an eyewitness’ testimony. However, previous research has found that eyewitnesses are notoriously poor at identifying perpetrators from police lineups. This study aimed to increase the accuracy rate of eyewitnesses by having participants create a criminal composite sketch independently to overcome the verbal overshadowing effect, which is known to alter the eyewitness’ memory of the perpetrator. This was a within-subjects study in which each participant completed a filler task created a composite sketch, and described the perpetrator. The hypothesis was that the participant would be best at identifying the perpetrator from a lineup after creating a composite sketch because the visual components of the sketch should overcome the verbal overshadowing effect. This hypothesis was not supported.

Major

Psychology

First Reader(s)

Connell Pensky, Allison E.