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1. No explicit memory for individual trial display configurations in a visual search task

   https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-021-01185-y  

   O’Donnell, Ryan E. ; Chen, Hui ; Wyble, Brad ( April 2021 , Memory & Cognition)

   null (Ed.)

   Previous evidence demonstrated that individuals can recall a target’s location in a search display even if location information is completely task-irrelevant. This finding raises the question: does this ability to automatically encode a single item’s location into a reportable memory trace extend to other aspects of spatial information as well? We tested this question using a paradigm designed to elicit attribute amnesia (Chen & Wyble, 2015a). Participants were initially asked to report the location of a target letter among digits with stimuli arranged to form one of two or four spatial configurations varying randomly across trials. After completing numerous trials that matched their expectations, participants were surprised with a series of unexpected questions probing their memory for various aspects of the display they had just viewed. Participants had a profound inability to report which spatial configuration they had just perceived when the target’s location was not unique to a specific configuration (i.e., orthogonal). Despite being unable to report the most recent configuration, answer choices on the surprise trial were focused around previously seen configurations, rather than novel configurations. Thus, there were clear memories of the set of configurations that had been viewed during the experiment but not of the specific configuration from the most recent trial. This finding helps to set boundary conditions on previous findings regarding the automatic encoding of location information into memory. 

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2. Tuning Attention to Object Categories: Spatially Global Effects of Attention to Faces in Visual Processing

   https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_01400  

   Störmer, Viola S. ; Cohen, Michael A. ; Alvarez, George A. ( July 2019 , Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience)

   Feature-based attention is known to enhance visual processing globally across the visual field, even at task-irrelevant locations. Here, we asked whether attention to object categories, in particular faces, shows similar location-independent tuning. Using EEG, we measured the face-selective N170 component of the EEG signal to examine neural responses to faces at task-irrelevant locations while participants attended to faces at another task-relevant location. Across two experiments, we found that visual processing of faces was amplified at task-irrelevant locations when participants attended to faces relative to when participants attended to either buildings or scrambled face parts. The fact that we see this enhancement with the N170 suggests that these attentional effects occur at the earliest stage of face processing. Two additional behavioral experiments showed that it is easier to attend to the same object category across the visual field relative to two distinct categories, consistent with object-based attention spreading globally. Together, these results suggest that attention to high-level object categories shows similar spatially global effects on visual processing as attention to simple, individual, low-level features. 

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3. New signal detection theory-based framework for eyewitness performance in lineups

   https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1037/lhb0000343  

   Lee, J. ; Penrod, S. D. ( January 2019 , Law and human behavior)

   Objectives: Eyewitness research has adapted signal detection theory (SDT) to investigate eyewitness performance. SDT-based measures in yes/no tasks fit well for the measurement of eyewitness performance in show-ups, but not in lineups, because the application of the measures to eyewitness identifications neglects the role of fillers. In the present study, we introduce a SDT-based framework for eyewitness performance in lineups—Multi-d′ Model. Method: The Multi-d′ model provides multiple discriminability measures which can be used as parameters to investigate eyewitness performance. We apply the Multi-d′ model to issues in eyewitness research, such as the comparison of eyewitness discriminability between show-ups and lineups; the influence of lineup bias on eyewitness performance; filler selection methods (match-to-description vs. match-to-suspect); eyewitness confidence; and lineup presentation modes (simultaneous vs. sequential lineups). Results: The Multi-d′ model demonstrates that the discriminability of a guilty suspect from an innocent suspect is a function of discriminability involving fillers; and underscores that the decisions that eyewitnesses make in lineups can be regarded from two perspective—detection and identification. Conclusions: We propose that the Multi-d′ model is a useful tool to understand decisionmakers’ performance in a variety of compound decision tasks, as well as eyewitness identifications in lineups. 

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4. New Signal Detection Theory-Based Framework for Eyewitness Performance in Lineups

   https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.17605/osf.io/c7ufx  

   Lee, J. ; Penrod, S. D. ( June 2019 , Journal of applied research in memory and cognition)

   SDT-based measures in yes/no tasks fit well for the measurement of eyewitness performance in a show-up (a detection task), but not in a lineup (a compound task of detection plus identification). We introduce a new SDT-based framework for eyewitness performance in lineups (Multi-d′ model). The Multi-d′ model demonstrates that the discriminability of a guilty suspect from an innocent suspect is a function of discriminability involving fillers and the differential filler siphoning effect; and that eyewitnesses’ discrimination in lineups can be assessed at two levels—detection and identification levels. We apply the Multi-d′ model to issues in eyewitness research. 

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5. Phenotypic mismatch between suspects and fillers but not phenotypic bias increases eyewitness identifications of Black suspects

   https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1233782  

   Jones, Jennifer M ; Katzman, Jacqueline ; Kovera, Margaret Bull ( April 2024 , Frontiers in Psychology)

   Despite converging evidence that people more closely associate the construct of criminality with Black people who exhibit a more African facial phenotype than Black people who express a more European phenotype, eyewitness researchers have largely ignored phenotypic bias as a potential contributor to the racial disparities in the criminal legal system. If this form of phenotypic bias extends to eyewitness identification tasks, eyewitnesses may be more likely to identify Black suspects with an African rather than European phenotype, regardless of their guilt status. Further, in cases where the witness’s description of the perpetrator does not contain phenotypic information, phenotypic mismatch between the suspect and the other lineup members may bias identification decisions toward or against the suspect. If witnesses can use elements of the lineup construction to guide their identification decisions rather than relying on their recognition memory, then the lineup should be deemed unfair due to suspect bias. The current study also investigated lineup presentation method as a procedural safeguard, predicting that that when lineups were presented simultaneously, there would be a significant two-way interaction of phenotypic bias and lineup composition, with a larger simple main effect of phenotypic bias when lineups were suspect-biased (i.e., the fillers were a phenotypic mismatch to the suspect) than when all lineup members shared the same phenotype. We expected that this interaction would be significantly smaller or non-significant for sequential lineups.

   Participants watched a mock crime video that contained a Black culprit with either a more African phenotype or a less African phenotype before attempting identifications from a photo array that contained a suspect whose phenotype always matched the culprit viewed in the video, but varied in culprit-presence, phenotypic match of the suspect and fillers, and presentation method.

   Participants did not identify Black suspects with Afrocentric features more often than Black suspects with Eurocentric features. However, witnesses made more identifications of suspects when the fillers did not match the suspect’s phenotype compared to when all lineup members possessed similar phenotypic features.

   In sum, phenotypic bias did not influence our participant-witnesses’ identification decisions, nor interact with lineup composition and lineup presentation type to affect identifications of suspects, suggesting that phenotypic bias may be less influential in match-to-memory tasks than other types of legal decision-making (e.g., determining guilt and sentencing). However, the suggestiveness created by failing to match fillers’ phenotypes to the suspect’s phenotype can be avoided with proper attention to fair lineup construction.

    

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