Abstract
Objective: The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between the description lenght of a perpetrator of own- and other-race and correct identification in target-present lineups. Participants and Methods: Participants (N = 153; Mage = 34,5 years) watched a videotaped robbery (with Czech or Vietnamese offender) and were later asked to write down all they remember about the perpetrator's appearance, identify the perpetrator in a lineup and state how confident they are about the decision.
This procedure was repeated a month later with the same participants but unseen perpetrator. Results: Significant relationship between description lenght and correct identification decisions was found when identifying perpetrator of other race (p=0,003).
Participants who made a correct decision reported more information (Mcz = 5,51; MV = 5,45) than participants who made an incorrect decision (Mcz = 5,21; MV = 4,47). When identifying the perpetrator of own ethnicity significant relationship was found between description lenght, correct identification and confidence.
Respondents who had longer description stated higher confidence in their identification. The gender effect was not found on the description lenght, although there were a few differencies in stated details.
Conclusions: In this experiment, a significant relationship was found between the length of the offender's description and the correct identification of other-race offender. Although the description length showed stronger relationship with accuracy than certainty, this finding should be further examined.
The provision of word description and a lineup identification are two different cognitive tasks - recall and recognition. For more accurate results, we recommend assessing the cognitive abilities of participants in further research.