Date of Award

January 2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Andre Kehn

Abstract

Surveillance cameras serve many purposes, including security, monitoring, and investigating crimes. The presence of surveillance cameras allows for a new form of witness: a non-eyewitness, where crimes are captured by surveillance cameras without a physical witness present (Pezdek & Lerer, 2023a). As such, police officers are acting as eyewitnesses by identifying the perpetrator from the surveillance evidence and testifying about their identification at trial (Rumschik et al., 2020). Previous studies have examined participants’ ability to accurately match previously viewed faces with faces on surveillance evidence, with results suggesting accuracy rates around chance (e.g., Bruce et al., 2001; White et al., 2016). Facial features and body type are common identification factors, but with the presence of video footage, new identification factors, such as gait, aid the identification process (Birch et al., 2013). When referencing these features in an identification, it can lead to the featural justification effect, which occurs when the witness provides a justification in their identification of the suspect. However, the featural justification effect has primarily been studied using static features. The current study investigated types of evidence (surveillance photo still vs. surveillance video), the featural justification effect (observable: nose, gait vs. unobservable), and type of non-eyewitness (police officer vs. layperson). Participants were exposed to one of ten conditions where they listened to an audio recording of a trial and responded to case outcome measures and questions assessing their perceptions of the identification both pre- and post-deliberation. It was predicted that jurors will perceive an identification from a surveillance video as more credible compared to a surveillance photo still. In contrast, photo stills were perceived as more credible compared to video evidence. Results revealed that deliberation led to a significant reduction in guilty verdicts. Additionally, jurors were less likely to find someone guilty if the identification was based on an unobservable justification, where no juries indicated a guilty verdict when provided with an unobservable justification. Implications highlight jurors’ perceptions of identifications from surveillance evidence and the impact of jury deliberation on individual-level decision-making.

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