Using eyetracking technology to identify looking behaviors in child eyewitnesses

A pattern of reduced accuracy in children’s lineup decisions has been a consistent issue in developmental eyewitness literature. Using eyetracking technology, this study examined whether the number of looks and time spent looking at a perpetrator during the commission of a crime (encoding) and a subsequent lineup (retrieval) reflected lineup decision accuracy in children (6–12 years old). While time spent viewing perpetrators’ faces during encoding was not related to lineup decision accuracy, the number of fixations (‘looks’) at the perpetrators during encoding emerged as significantly related to accurate identifications in target-present lineups. During retrieval, increased time spent looking at fillers signaled an inaccurate witness, while increased time spent looking at a suspect indicated an accurate witness. These findings provide evidence that children’s looking behaviors during a lineup are useful reflector variables to help infer decision accuracy.