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Contribution of Role Recollection and Perpetrator Identification to the Accuracy of Multi-perpetrator Eyewitness Testimonies
Eyewitness testimonies serve as heavily weighted evidence in criminal investigations. Despite this, research has demonstrated the fallibility of eyewitness memory, especially for crimes involving more than one perpetrator. The task for multi-perpetrator eyewitnesses is unique as they not only have t...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Department of Psychology
2022
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| _version_ | 1867613288212201472 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Allen, Caroline |
| author2 | Tredoux, Colin |
| author_browse | Allen, Caroline Tredoux, Colin |
| author_facet | Tredoux, Colin Allen, Caroline |
| author_sort | Allen, Caroline |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | Eyewitness testimonies serve as heavily weighted evidence in criminal investigations. Despite this, research has demonstrated the fallibility of eyewitness memory, especially for crimes involving more than one perpetrator. The task for multi-perpetrator eyewitnesses is unique as they not only have to identify perpetrators, but describe the roles played in the crime and then assign an action to each perpetrator. This study examined factors affecting perpetrator identification, role recollection, and perpetrator-role pairing. Participants (N = 216) watched a staged video of a crime and then completed online tasks based on what they saw. At encoding, participants viewed one, two, or five perpetrators. Participants were either required to identify perpetrators from line-ups or were given images of each offender. In addition, they were either required to describe each perpetrator's role or were given this information. For methodological reasons, no perpetrator-absent line-ups were included in the current research as participants who viewed this kind of line-up had no potential for scoring along the perpetrator-role pairing measure. The results suggest that, as the number of perpetrators increases, participants made fewer correct identifications, role recollections, and pairings. However, there was no significant difference in identification accuracy between the one-and two-perpetrator conditions. The findings also show that while receiving experimenter-defined roles yields more accurate pairings, receiving photographs of the perpetrators does not. Future research is needed into the pairing process, the findings of which could be used to improve police procedure for interviewing multiperpetrator eyewitnesses. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/35627 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:33:45.686Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| publishDateRange | 2022 |
| publishDateSort | 2022 |
| publisher | Department of Psychology |
| publisherStr | Department of Psychology |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/35627 Contribution of Role Recollection and Perpetrator Identification to the Accuracy of Multi-perpetrator Eyewitness Testimonies Allen, Caroline Tredoux, Colin Nortje, Alicia Neuropsychology Eyewitness testimonies serve as heavily weighted evidence in criminal investigations. Despite this, research has demonstrated the fallibility of eyewitness memory, especially for crimes involving more than one perpetrator. The task for multi-perpetrator eyewitnesses is unique as they not only have to identify perpetrators, but describe the roles played in the crime and then assign an action to each perpetrator. This study examined factors affecting perpetrator identification, role recollection, and perpetrator-role pairing. Participants (N = 216) watched a staged video of a crime and then completed online tasks based on what they saw. At encoding, participants viewed one, two, or five perpetrators. Participants were either required to identify perpetrators from line-ups or were given images of each offender. In addition, they were either required to describe each perpetrator's role or were given this information. For methodological reasons, no perpetrator-absent line-ups were included in the current research as participants who viewed this kind of line-up had no potential for scoring along the perpetrator-role pairing measure. The results suggest that, as the number of perpetrators increases, participants made fewer correct identifications, role recollections, and pairings. However, there was no significant difference in identification accuracy between the one-and two-perpetrator conditions. The findings also show that while receiving experimenter-defined roles yields more accurate pairings, receiving photographs of the perpetrators does not. Future research is needed into the pairing process, the findings of which could be used to improve police procedure for interviewing multiperpetrator eyewitnesses. 2022-02-01T10:28:31Z 2022-02-01T10:28:31Z 2021 2022-01-31T11:03:29Z Master Thesis Masters MPhil http://hdl.handle.net/11427/35627 eng application/pdf Department of Psychology Faculty of Humanities |
| spellingShingle | Neuropsychology Allen, Caroline Contribution of Role Recollection and Perpetrator Identification to the Accuracy of Multi-perpetrator Eyewitness Testimonies |
| thesis_degree_str | Master's |
| title | Contribution of Role Recollection and Perpetrator Identification to the Accuracy of Multi-perpetrator Eyewitness Testimonies |
| title_full | Contribution of Role Recollection and Perpetrator Identification to the Accuracy of Multi-perpetrator Eyewitness Testimonies |
| title_fullStr | Contribution of Role Recollection and Perpetrator Identification to the Accuracy of Multi-perpetrator Eyewitness Testimonies |
| title_full_unstemmed | Contribution of Role Recollection and Perpetrator Identification to the Accuracy of Multi-perpetrator Eyewitness Testimonies |
| title_short | Contribution of Role Recollection and Perpetrator Identification to the Accuracy of Multi-perpetrator Eyewitness Testimonies |
| title_sort | contribution of role recollection and perpetrator identification to the accuracy of multi perpetrator eyewitness testimonies |
| topic | Neuropsychology |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/35627 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT allencaroline contributionofrolerecollectionandperpetratoridentificationtotheaccuracyofmultiperpetratoreyewitnesstestimonies |