The Mystery Man can help reduce false identifications for child witnesses:evidence from video lineups

The Open University's repository of research publications and other research outputs The Mystery Man can help reduce false identifications for child witnesses:evidence from video lineups Journal Article How to cite: Havard, Catriona and Memon, Amina (2013). The Mystery Man can help reduce false identifications for child witnesses:evidence from video lineups. Copyright and Moral Rights for the articles on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. For more information on Open Research Online's data policy on reuse of materials please consult the policies page. Summary: It is well established that children (as young as 5 years) can correctly identify a target from a target present (TP) line-up as accurately as adults; however, when shown a target absent (TA) line-up, children make more false identifications. In the present study, children aged 5–7 and 8–11 years viewed a film of a staged theft, then 1–2 days later were shown either a TP or TA video line-up. Half of the witnesses viewed line-ups that included a 'mystery man' (a black silhouette with a white question mark), which they could select if they did not recognise anyone from the line-up. When the 'mystery man' was present in the line-up, there were significantly fewer false identifications for the TA line-ups. This study shows that including a silhouette in a video line-up can help reduce false identifications for children as young as 5 years of age, without reducing correct identifications.