Post-Identification Feedback Effect
Definition
The inflation of witness confidence, perceived viewing quality, and retrospective memory detail following confirming feedback from an investigator. Documented by Wells and Bradfield (1998).
- Documented by
- Wells and Bradfield, 1998
- Domain
- Eyewitness lineup identification
- Trigger
- Confirming feedback from an investigator after a choice is made
- Inflated measures
- Confidence, viewing quality, and recalled detail
Common questions
Why is this effect a problem for court testimony?+
Jurors and judges often treat a witness's stated confidence as a proxy for accuracy, but the feedback effect shows that confidence can be raised after the fact by an investigator's comment, so post-feedback confidence no longer reliably tracks how accurate the identification actually was.
How do agencies try to prevent it?+
Double-blind lineup administration, where the officer running the lineup does not know who the suspect is, removes the opportunity to give confirming or disconfirming feedback, and recording the witness's confidence statement immediately after the choice, before any feedback, preserves an uncontaminated measure.
Related terms
- Cross-Race Effect
- The empirical finding that own-race identifications are more accurate than cross-race identifications (Meissner and Brigham meta-analysis, 2001), with practical implications for lineup...
- Estimator Variables
- Factors present at the time of the crime that affect encoding accuracy but cannot be retrospectively controlled, including weapon focus, cross-race effect,...
- Misinformation Effect
- The incorporation of misleading post-event information into the original memory trace, documented by Loftus and Palmer (1974) and subsequent studies. Distinguished from...
- R V. Turnbull Warning
- A mandatory judicial warning in English and Welsh Crown Court proceedings when the case depends substantially on identification evidence, requiring the jury...
- Reconstructive Memory
- The psychological model of memory as a constructive process shaped by schemas, expectations, and post-event information, rather than a fixed recording. Foundational...
- System Variables
- Factors in the identification process that are within the control of the criminal justice system, including lineup administration, instructions, and feedback policies....
- Weapon Focus Effect
- The reduced encoding of a perpetrator's face when a weapon is present, attributable to attentional narrowing toward the threat-relevant stimulus (Steblay meta-analysis,...