Field Studies of Eyewitness Identification

A field study involves a controlled experiment conducted in a real-world or naturalistic setting to observe and analyze factors affecting in the real world. In the context on eyewitness memory and lineup identification, conducting a field study involves working with police departments to see what influence different lineup procedures (e.g., double-blind lineup administrations and videotaping the procedure) have on suspect identifications in real cases. An archival analysis is a systematic review of existing data. In terms of eyewitness memory and lineup identification, this involves going through old case files and recording the estimator variables (e.g., lighting, distance, head covering) and system variables (e.g., lineup procedures). In this chapter, all the field studies and archival studies on eyewitness memory are reviewed and the major findings of each are identified. In addition, the chapter discusses how these field and archival study findings match the laboratory findings. The chapter concludes by listing the overall patterns from these studies, as well as limitations, challenges, and suggested future directions.