RUNNING HEAD: Hit and miss: Is the sequential superiority effect just a false alarm?

Hit and miss: Is the sequential superiority effect just a false alarm?
George Steven Baker/539340
PSYC20007 Cognitive Psychology
Lab 21: Thursday 8 a.m.
Tutor: Mr. Geoffrey Saw
1642 words

Hit and miss: Is the sequential superiority effect just a false alarm?

Abstract
The past few decades have seen much published literature advocating the superiority
of sequential lineup procedures (SEQ) over simultaneous lineup procedures (SIM) for
eyewitness identification (Steblay, Dysart, Fulero, & Lindsay, 2001). This study
attempted to replicate findings that SEQ resulted in fewer hits and fewer false alarms
than SIM. After testing 740 cognitive psychology students, no significant evidence of
replication was found. Additionally, a novel lineup procedure was introduced in this
study with the aim of reducing false alarms in culprit-absent lineups. The sequential
presentation-only procedure (SPO) differs from SEQ in that the witness is asked
whether the culprit is present once at the end of the sequence, instead of after each
lineup member. Contrary to the hypothesis, SPO had a false alarm rate significantly
higher than SIM. The results of this study add to scepticism of the sequential
superiority hypothesis (McQuiston-Surret, Malpass, & Tredoux, 2006).

Hit and miss: Is the sequential superiority effect just a false alarm?

Ongoing cognitive psychology research aims to determine a suspect lineup

procedure that delivers the most accurate culprit identification by eyewitnesses of a
crime. Forensic DNA testing became mainstream practice in the 1990s, and led to a
large number of exonerations. For example, false eyewitness identification involved
the wrongful conviction of 36 out of the 40 cases described in a study by Wells et al.
(1998). All of those cases were exonerated by forensic DNA testing. The abundance
of forensically proven wrongful convictions by false eyewitness compelled the
criminal justice system to properly consider eyewitness identification research (Wells
& Olson, 2003).
A lineup procedure is an example of a system variable, something that can
affect eyewitness accuracy and can also be controlled by the criminal justice system
(Wells, 1978). There are two salient lineup procedures: the simultaneous procedure
(SIM), and the sequential procedure (SEQ). The more traditional and typically used
procedure used by law enforcement is SIM (Meissner, Tredoux, Parker, & MacLin,
2005), whereby suspects and/or lineup members are presented at the same time and
the witness is asked to recognise the culprit. Wells (1984) challenged SIMs
effectiveness with his relative judgement hypothesis.
The hypothesis described the relative judgement that is elicited by SIM
lineups. When lineup members are presented at the same time, the witness will tend to
judge the culprit as the one that most resembles their memory of the criminal relative
to the other lineup members (Wells, 1984). The procedure can be effective when the
culprit is present in the lineup, but may cause false conviction of an innocent suspect
due to being the most relative resemblance of the absent culprit in the lineup (Dysart,
& Lindsay, 2001).
The SEQ procedure shows lineup members one at a time, and requires

Hit and miss: Is the sequential superiority effect just a false alarm?

witnesses to make a yes or no judgement of whether they believe the presented

member is the culprit (Dysart, & Lindsay, 2001). Lindsay and Wells (1985) developed
SEQ and reported reduced false identification in the culprit-absent lineups and no
change of the rate of accurate identifications when the culprit was present.
SEQ supposedly inhibits relative judgement by witnesses, and induces the
absolute judgement process (McQuiston-Surrett, Malpass, & Tredoux, 2006). An
absolute judgement compares the witness memory of the culprit to each line-up
member individually. Additional conditions in SEQ can further eliminate relative
judgement, such as not allowing changes to yes judgements, having a double-blind
procedure, showing each photograph once only, and not disclosing how many lineup
members are to be shown (McQuiston-Surrett et al., 2006).
A proposal has suggested that differences in the two lineup procedures are due
to a criterion shift model (Ebbesen, & Flowe, 2002). According to signal detection
theory (SDT), the response criterion is the degree of evidence needed for an
individual to respond that a signal is present (Meissner et al., 2005). A meta-analysis
(MA) (Steblay et al., 2001) found SIM generated more overall choices than SEQ. This
shifted the criterion in favour of correct hits in culprit-present lineups, yet with the
undesirable outcome of more false alarm responses for SIM by saying the culprit
was present in culprit-absent lineups. This study aims to replicate these findings and
thus hypothesises that SEQ should produce fewer hits and fewer false alarms than
SIM.
This study also aims to determine a more reliable form of SEQ. Steblay et al.s
(2001) MA found SEQ had a bias towards reporting the culprit absent from the lineup.
This represents a criterion shift that increases the likelihood of reporting the culprit
absent. The aim is to develop a procedure that maintains absolute judgement, and also

Hit and miss: Is the sequential superiority effect just a false alarm?

does not cause a criterion shift. A novel sequential presentation-only procedure (SPO)
will be tested where a lineup is presented sequentially, but a decision on the presence
or absence of the culprit is not made until the end of the sequence. Making just one
decision each lineup may reduce the propensity to report the culprit absent by
eliminating unpredictable aspects of SEQ, such as how many lineup members will be
present in the sequence. The study hypothesises that SPO will show no reduction in
the hit rate of SIM (thus also achieving a higher hit rate than SEQ), and fewer false
alarms than SIM.
Method
Participants
The participants were 740 PSYC20007 Cognitive Psychology students who
completed the task in groups as part of a laboratory experiment. Students were
randomly assigned to conditions with 270 in the Simultaneous presentation condition,
238 in the Sequential presentation condition and 232 in the Sequential Presentation
Only condition.
Stimuli and Apparatus
Participants were group tested in a computer lab. The experiment was
completed in an Internet browser running an experiment programmed using HTML
and JavaScript. The stimuli were black and white headshots of males taken from
Kayser (1985); each photo was presented on a white background.
Procedure
On each trial, the words Get Ready were presented for 1000 ms followed by
the presentation of a target face (the perpetrator), which was presented for 500 ms and
was immediately backward masked by a scrambled image of that face presented for
1000 ms. The lineup was then presented, and the participants response recorded.

Hit and miss: Is the sequential superiority effect just a false alarm?

In the simultaneous presentation condition, all five faces were presented

simultaneously in a row across the centre of the screen with a small gap between each
face along with identifying numbers 1 to 5. The number of remaining trials was
displayed on the screen at this stage. Participants were instructed to respond with 1 to
5 indicating the lineup member that they thought was the target or to respond 6 if the
target was not present in the lineup. The experiment then advanced to the next trial.
In the sequential condition, the five lineup members were presented one at a
time for until a response was made. For each lineup member, the participant made a
response (yes or no). There was a 1000 ms blank interval between each face. Once all
of the five lineup members were completed, the participants were informed of the
number of remaining trials for 1500 ms, and the experiment advanced to the next trial.
In the Sequential Presentation Only condition, the five lineup members were
presented one at a time for 1000 ms each. There was a blank interval of 1000 ms
between each lineup member. After the final lineup member, the response scale was
presented 6 until a response was made. The number of remaining trials was displayed
on the screen at this stage. Participants were instructed to respond with 1 to 5
indicating the lineup member that they thought was the target or to respond 6 if the
target was not present in the lineup. The experiment then advanced to the next trial.
In each condition, the lineup was constructed from a set of five faces drawn
from a set of 54 possible faces. On target present trials, the target was drawn
randomly from the set of lineup faces. On target absent trials, the target was drawn
from the remaining 49 faces. There were 50 trials in the experiment.
Results
The descriptive statistics for the hits and false alarms of the three lineup
procedures are shown in Table 1. These results show that most hits occurred in the

Hit and miss: Is the sequential superiority effect just a false alarm?

SIM condition, followed by SPO, and then SEQ. Additionally, most false alarms
occurred in the SPO condition, followed by SEQ, and then SIM.
Table 1.
Descriptive statistics for the hits and false alarms of the three conditions of suspect
line-ups
Hits

Condition

Mean

Std.

SIM
SEQ
SPO

.8470
.8213
.8348

Deviation
.17242
.19229
.18568

SIM
SEQ
SPO

.1706
.1890
.2414

.17898
.18292
.19580

False alarms

A one-way ANOVA did not show a significant difference in the hit rates
between the procedures, F(2,737) = 1.24, p = .29. However, it did show a significant
difference in the false alarm rates between the groups, F(2,737) = 9.54, p < .001, 2
= .03. This result demonstrates a small to medium effect of line-up procedure on false
alarm, according to Cohen (1988).
For post-hoc analysis, the Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons was
used. The analysis showed a significant difference in the false alarm rate between the
SIM and SPO conditions (Mean Difference = .07, p < .001) and between the SEQ and
SPO conditions (Mean Difference = .05, p = .007), but not between the SIM and SEQ
conditions (Mean Difference = .02, p = .79).
Discussion
This study aimed to replicate previous findings that SEQ produces less hits
and less false alarms than the SIM lineup procedure. It also proposed the novel SPO
and hypothesised this procedure would show no reduction in the SIM hit rate, but

Hit and miss: Is the sequential superiority effect just a false alarm?

would show fewer false alarms than SIM.

No hypothesis relating to hit rates was supported. SEQ showed a lower hit rate
than SIM, but not to a significant level. SPO also showed a non-significant but lower
hit rate than SIM (but a non-significant higher hit rate than SEQ). This means SPOs
null hypothesis regarding hit rate cannot be rejected, but the evidence is inconclusive
due to the marginally lower hit rate than SIM. Further research on the relation
between SIM and SPO procedures hit rates should be carried out to gain more
conclusive and insightful findings.
Additionally, no hypothesis relating to false alarms was supported. SEQ
produced more, not less, false alarms than SIM, but not to a significant level. SPO
produced significantly higher false alarms than SIM. This result is opposite to what
was hypothesised.
There has been a solid foundation for believing SEQ is superior to SIM,
including a study that reported 81% of experts thought SEQ superior (Kassin, Tubb,
Hosch, & Memon, 2001). However, McQuiston-Surret et al. (2006) reanalysed
Steblay et al.s (2001) MA, and found a number of weaknesses in its findings. A
notable weakness is that when excluding studies involving R. C. L. Lindsay as a
contributing author, there is no evidence that SEQ is more superior to SIM
(McQuiston-Surret et al., 2006).
Additionally, McQuiston-Surret et al. (2006) argued that Steblay et al.s (2001)
focus on overall SEQ superiority was misleading, because SEQ was only superior to
SIM in some respects. Steblay et al.s (2001) MA data found that more hits and less
false rejections were achieved in SIM than SEQ. It found that SEQ was superior in
reducing false alarms and increasing correct rejections. Therefore, SEQ was only
superior when the culprit was absent, while SIM was superior when the culprit was

Hit and miss: Is the sequential superiority effect just a false alarm?

present (McQuiston-Surret et al., 2006).

McQuiston-Surret et al. (2006) stress that this topics literature is
underdeveloped. The differences between SIM and SEQs results therefore do not
have a well-established explanation. From this study, it is evident that reducing the
chances to answer that the culprit is not present does not reduce false alarms. That
there was not a significant difference in SPO and SIMs hit rate is encouraging.
However, it would seem difficult to explain the difference between relative and
absolute judgement methods with such a marginal, non-significant difference.
There is a difficulty in relating studies findings to one another due to
methodological differences in gathering data (McQuiston-Surret et al., 2006). For
instance, Meissner et al. (2005) added a condition that the participant only choose the
presence of a culprit in both lineup procedures if 100% certain of the culprits
presence. This condition caused the responses to be more conservative, and eliminated
differences between the procedures.
Future research could involve further testing of SPO to understand what
causes the significantly higher false alarms. The results indicate the criterion shifted in
favour of predicting that the culprit was present in the lineup. A possibility could be
that as the participant attempts to employ absolute judgement, working memory is
overloaded with the addition of presented lineup members, which compromises the
original memory of the culprit. If a lineup member looks relatively similar to the
culprit, the compromised memory system may engage in relative judgement and thus
produce a false alarm response more often.
Overall, there seems to be a great deal of contention in this topics literature
from a number of moderator variables, with the sequential superiority hypothesis far
from conclusive.

Hit and miss: Is the sequential superiority effect just a false alarm?

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