Examining the Cross-Race Effect in Lineup Identification Using Caucasian and First Nations Samples - ProQuest

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• wenty-nine Caucasian students (mean age = 22.48 years1; range = 18-49 years; 22 women, 7 men)

• Twenty-four First Nations participants were recruited from Northlands College, La Ronge, Saskatchewan (mean age = 30.5 years; range = 20-48 years; 16 women, 8 men).

• 179 photographs of individuals of First Nations descent and 184 photographs of individuals of Caucasian descent. Two different photographs of each face were taken

• A positive bias occurs when the target is selected more often than expected by chance because of the distinctiveness of the target in the array, even if the selector has a poor memory of the target. A negative bias occurs when the distractors look so similar to the target that the target is less likely to be chosen

• The 12 photographs consisted of the target and 11 foils

• Any features that showed up in all three descriptions were used in the final description presented to participants. Using a mock witness paradigm, participants were given a description of a target and asked to identify the target that was described from an array of 12 photographs.

• Participants were given 1 min to make their decision and write down the number of the photograph they believe best fit the description.

• he faces were viewed for 3 s each, with a 1-s interstimulus interval

• participants were given a distractor task.

• objective is to identify the faces that you saw at the beginning of the experiment. For each lineup, one of the faces may or may not be present." Participants were then presented with a series of 12 lineups (6 TP and 6 TA) involving faces of the same race they had viewed during the study phase.

• Once completed, participants followed the same procedure for the other race of face

• Unlike the typical Caucasian-Black results, participants in this study did not exhibit a more liberal response bias when responding to other-race faces.

• both Caucasian and First Nations individuals applied a significantly more liberal response bias when identifying First Nations faces than when identifying Caucasian faces. Admittedly, however, this response bias effect was more pronounced in Caucasian participants, a finding consistent with prior studies in the CRE literature that indicate the effect is more likely to be exhibited in majority-race participants (

• amination of the First Nations stimuli suggested that faces from several tribal communities (e.g., Cree, Blackfoot) had been included. Although anthropologically these various tribal communities can be grouped under the larger umbrella of First Nations peoples, physiognomic differences can be noted by most First Nations people that categorise individuals as belonging to a particular community. In this study, the patterns of false alarms and response criterion that First Nations participants displayed with First Nations faces more closely resembled the typical other-race recognition pattern. In fact, several First Nations participants relayed to the researcher that they could easily distinguish among Cree, Blackfoot, and other bands of Indians. Given the betweengroups nature of categorisations that some participants may have encountered within the First Nations stimuli, it is possible that "out-group" effects might be found between different tribal communities (e.g., a Cree participant who commits a false alarm when attempting to identify a Blackfoot target may actually represent an out-group identification error).

• It is possible that participants' self-reported amount of contact with First Nations individuals actually represents a sum score of contact with several out-groups, such as Cree and Blackfoot individuals, and thus cannot be considered a valid predictor of recognition accuracy.

• esults confirm that the CRE exists between CaucasianFirst Nations pairings using a simultaneous TA and TP lineup identification task.

• both Caucasian and First Nations participants applied a more liberal response bias (i.e., more willing to choose from the lineup) when attempting to identify First Nations faces

• potential for mistaken identification of First Nations individuals is high, regardless of the race of the eyewitness.