The Impact of Viewing Conditions and Implicit Bias on Cross-Race Eyewitness Identification Accuracy
Eyewitness identifications are often unreliable. Misidentifications are caused by a number of factors, including Own-Race Bias (ORB) where individuals recognise own-race faces more accurately than cross-race faces, by viewing conditions, particularly increased distance and decreased lighting, and by higher implicit racial bias. Investigating these racial disparities is crucial as a disproportionate number of Black individuals are in prison. The focus of this research is to investigate the interplay between these factors; whether increased distance or lower lighting exacerbate the effect of ORB by impairing encoding of Black (vs White) faces and whether this effect is moderated by implicit racial bias. The project will have three novel studies – study one will establish a database of face images under different lighting conditions (i.e. bright to dark), investigating the use of artificially generated lighting applied to existing face pictures versus manipulating real lighting conditions; study two will explore to what extent increased distances reduce eyewitness accuracy and whether this is lower for cross-race identifications; study three will explore to what extent low-lighting reduces eyewitness accuracy and whether this accuracy is lower for cross-race identifications. Studies two and three will also evaluate whether implicit bias moderates the ORB effect and increased distance or low-lighting on identification accuracy. Fitting within the theme of Secure, Effective and Trusted Institutions, this project has the potential to provide guidance for judicial decision-makers concerning how to estimate eyewitness reliability, leading to improved legal systems that ensure justice by reducing wrongful convictions due to misidentification.