Snap Shot
- The question: What interviewing and identification procedures help a witness report accurately, and protect what the witness remembers from being changed by the investigation itself?
- What the research shows: The Cognitive Interview and the written Self-Administered Interview elicit substantially more correct information than standard questioning, with a smaller rise in errors, and early recall helps preserve memory over time. Warnings reduce the effect of misinformation. Double-blind lineups, fair fillers, unbiased instructions, an immediate confidence statement, and a recording make an identification easier to evaluate, and high initial confidence under such procedures is informative.
- What it does not show: No procedure makes a memory accurate or eliminates error. Deviating from recommended practice raises the risk of error but does not establish that an identification is wrong, and following best practice does not show that it is right. Much of the research is laboratory work, and some findings, such as the newer approach to filler selection, have not yet been tested in the field.
- The law: Due process screens only suggestive procedures arranged by police (Manson v. Brathwaite; Perry v. New Hampshire); Mil. R. Evid. 321 and Arizona’s Dessureault hearing apply related tests. Policies such as the 2017 Department of Justice photo-array procedures do not create enforceable rights. Expert testimony is governed by Rule 702, Houser, and Chapple.
- Issues for each side: Prosecutors benefit from early recorded interviews and identifications collected under recognized procedures, but should not treat later-stage confidence as corroboration; defense counsel can examine which safeguards were missing, but a missing safeguard does not by itself establish a misidentification.
Eyewitness memory is often compared to trace evidence: it can be collected well or badly, and it can be contaminated by the process of collecting it (Lane & Houston, 2021, pp. 12–13). Each interview, conversation, photograph, and identification procedure is itself an experience that the witness may later remember as part of the event. Mistaken identifications contributed to about 69% of the 375 DNA exonerations through 2020, as reported by the Innocence Project and summarized in Lane and Houston (2021, p. 3); that figure counts only convictions later overturned and is not an error rate for eyewitness identifications, and accurate accounts and identifications are central to many correct convictions that are never reexamined, so the methods used to gather a witness’s memory are a recurring subject of litigation.
Research points to two ways of improving eyewitness evidence: helping the witness retrieve and report what he or she actually remembers, and protecting that memory from alteration before and during testing (Lane & Houston, 2021, p. 13). Scientists disagree about how reliable eyewitness memory is in general. One influential review argued that memory is generally reliable on an initial, uncontaminated test conducted with proper procedures, and that many errors arise later from contamination introduced by the legal process (Wixted et al., 2018); a published commentary cautioned against overstating that reliability (Wade et al., 2018). Both agree that how a memory is first gathered matters a great deal.
This paper summarizes research on the Cognitive Interview, the Self-Administered Interview, early recall and the testing effect, warnings against misinformation, and the 2020 recommendations of the American Psychology–Law Society for identification procedures, including newer research on filler selection and the movement of the recommendations into policy.
System Variables and the First Test
Researchers distinguish estimator variables, which the justice system cannot control (lighting, distance, stress), from system variables, which it can (how witnesses are questioned and how lineups are built and administered). Improvement is largely a matter of managing system variables. Because each later contact can add information to memory or inflate confidence, the research places special weight on the first well-conducted interview and the first identification test. That emphasis does not make later accounts suspect in themselves: in non-suggestive mock-crime studies, details first reported in a later interview were often accurate, and Lane and Houston (2021, p. 129) note that treating them as a sign of unreliability assumes that memory is necessarily best soon after an event, an assumption the research does not support. Whether a later detail reflects recall or something learned in between depends on what happened in between, which is why a record of each contact matters.
The Cognitive Interview
The Cognitive Interview applies memory research to investigative interviewing (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992). The interviewer builds rapport, transfers control of the interview to the witness, invites a full narrative before any specific questions, and avoids interrupting. The witness mentally reinstates the context of the event and may recall it in more than one way, and questions are open-ended and follow the witness’s account.
An early meta-analysis found that the technique reliably increased correct information compared with standard interviews (Köhnken et al., 1999). A later meta-analysis covering 25 years of studies found a large increase in correct details and a much smaller increase in incorrect details, so that the proportion of reported details that were accurate was similar to that in comparison interviews (Memon et al., 2010). The technique therefore yields more information, most of it correct and some of it wrong. Timing matters: participants who received a Cognitive Interview before being pressed to fabricate answers about a filmed event later reported fewer fabricated details, while the same interview given afterward did not have that protective effect (Memon, Zaragoza, et al., 2010; Lane & Houston, 2021, pp. 130–131).
A variant for victims of sexual and physical assault, the Cognitive Interview Adapted to Trauma, has been described in a police trade publication by two members of the Sûreté du Québec’s behavioural sciences unit; its development included more than 70 interviews with sexual assault victims, and a preliminary anonymous survey of 62 trained investigators reported self-rated gains in the amount and relevance of information obtained and in rapport. The article presents no peer-reviewed evaluation of the adaptation, so the survey results are not evidence that it elicits more accurate information (Chez & Bibeau, 2025).
Early Recall: The Self-Administered Interview and the Testing Effect
Formal interviews are often delayed. The Self-Administered Interview is a written booklet, based on Cognitive Interview principles, that a witness can complete soon after an event without an interviewer. In the first experimental test, witnesses who completed it after viewing a simulated crime reported more correct details than those who gave free recall and recalled more a week later (Gabbert et al., 2009). Later experiments found that completing it reduced the effect of misleading information encountered afterward (Gabbert et al., 2012) and improved performance in a later investigative interview (Hope et al., 2014). A meta-analysis of 15 to 19 comparisons, depending on the measure, with 722 to 977 participants (Horry et al., 2021) found that the initial written report contained more correct and more incorrect details than other reporting formats, with slightly lower accuracy, and that witnesses who had completed it later gave accounts that were both more detailed and more accurate than witnesses who had not.
These benefits are consistent with the testing effect, the finding that retrieving information strengthens retention more than restudying it. A large meta-analysis found larger benefits for recall than for recognition and after delays of a day or more (Rowland, 2014), which suggests that an early, open-ended interview is especially useful (Lane & Houston, 2021, pp. 129–130). Retrieval can also cut the other way. In laboratory studies, people who recalled an event shortly before encountering misleading information were sometimes more likely to adopt it, a pattern called retrieval-enhanced suggestibility (Chan et al., 2017). The lesson is that early recall works best when it is open-ended and followed by protection from later suggestion, not that early questioning is harmful.
Protecting Memory from Misinformation
Witnesses encounter information about an event from co-witnesses, family, news and social media, and investigators. A meta-analysis found that warning participants after exposure to misinformation reduced its effect by more than half on average, though warnings rarely eliminated it (Blank & Launay, 2014). Timing again matters: in three experiments, a warning given shortly after the misinformation protected participants against retrieval-enhanced suggestibility even when memory was tested 48 hours later, but the same warning lost its effectiveness when it was delivered 48 hours after the misinformation (Chan et al., 2022). Source-focused questions about where a witness learned a detail can also reduce, but rarely eliminate, errors (Lane & Houston, 2021, pp. 81–87). Practical safeguards follow: separating witnesses, asking them not to discuss or research the event, withholding other witnesses’ accounts, and recording what each witness was told. The same safeguards protect the value of an accused person’s statements, because a detail an investigator discloses can later appear in a suspect’s account.
Identification Procedures
In 2020 six senior eyewitness researchers, after review by members of the American Psychology–Law Society and the legal community, issued nine recommendations for collecting and preserving identification evidence (Wells et al., 2020). Four updated 1998 recommendations (Wells et al., 1998): selecting fillers, giving prelineup instructions, using double-blind administration, and taking a confidence statement. Five were new: a prelineup interview, evidence-based suspicion before a person is placed in a procedure, video recording of the entire procedure, avoiding repeated procedures with the same witness and suspect, and avoiding showups where a lineup is feasible while making necessary showups less suggestive. Because sources number them differently, this paper refers to them by name (see Lane & Houston, 2021, pp. 143–155).
When the suspect is innocent, the possible outcomes are only a filler pick, a rejection, or a mistaken identification, so evidence-based suspicion reduces the chance that a witness views a lineup without the culprit. A prelineup interview documents the description, viewing conditions, and prior familiarity before later information can influence them. When the administrator knows who the suspect is, witnesses become more likely to pick the suspect, including an innocent suspect, and confidence in mistaken identifications can rise; double-blind administration prevents this usually unintentional influence (Charman & Quiroz, 2016; Kovera & Evelo, 2017). Witnesses commonly assume the culprit is present (Lane & Houston, 2021, p. 149), and instructions that the culprit may not be present and that the witness need not choose reduce mistaken identifications in culprit-absent lineups (Clark, 2005). A witness who has chosen someone once tends to choose that person again in a later procedure (Deffenbacher et al., 2006; Steblay & Dysart, 2016). A showup has no fillers to draw a mistaken choice away from the suspect; a meta-analysis found that witnesses chose less often from showups, but that an innocent person who resembled the culprit was identified somewhat more often in a showup than in a lineup, a difference reported as marginally significant (Steblay et al., 2003).
Filler Selection
Fillers should not let the suspect stand out; if the suspect alone shares a distinctive characteristic in the witness’s description, a choice may reflect that characteristic rather than recognition. Greater suspect-filler similarity reduces false identifications of innocent suspects but also reduces correct identifications of guilty ones (Fitzgerald et al., 2013), and for years research showed no clear advantage for suspect-matched over description-matched fillers (Lane & Houston, 2021, p. 148). In online experiments with more than 10,000 participants in the main study, when every filler matched the description of the perpetrator, choosing fillers who were otherwise dissimilar in appearance to the suspect increased correct identifications of guilty suspects without increasing mistaken identifications of innocent suspects, and so improved discriminability (Colloff et al., 2021). In a second experiment that defined similarity relative to the actual perpetrator (which police cannot know), less similar fillers increased mistaken identifications of innocent suspects. The authors describe the work as a first step; the approach has not yet been tested with real witnesses in police lineups, and it presupposes that every filler genuinely fits the description.
Confidence and the Record
Confidence expressed at trial is a weak guide to accuracy, because confidence can grow with time, feedback, and preparation. Confidence expressed at the initial identification, before feedback and under fair procedures, is more informative when the witness chooses someone; in field data from a police department using double-blind procedures, high-confidence identifications of suspects were highly accurate and low-confidence identifications much less so (Wixted et al., 2016). Confidence in a decision not to choose anyone has been found less informative (Sauer et al., 2010). In audio recordings of real police lineups, both a witness’s expressed confidence and decision time predicted whether the witness chose a suspect or a known-innocent filler, and observers’ ratings of how confident a witness sounded shifted with what they believed the witness had chosen (Quigley-McBride & Wells, 2023). That finding supports recording the witness’s own words at once and recording the whole procedure, so that the record, not a later recollection of it, shows what happened.
From Research to Policy
Wells (2020) traced how this research entered police practice through national guidance, state legislation and court decisions, and agency policies. A 2017 Department of Justice memorandum set procedures for photo arrays conducted by its components: blind or “blinded” administration where practicable, at least five fillers who fit the witness’s description, one suspect per array, an instruction that the perpetrator may not be present, no feedback, a confidence statement in the witness’s own words, and recording where possible. It allows documented departures in exceptional circumstances and states that it creates no enforceable rights and that an identification made without following it is not for that reason unreliable or inadmissible (U.S. Department of Justice, 2017).
Limits of the Evidence
Most of this research uses volunteers watching staged or filmed events with no stake in the outcome. Field studies are fewer, and because the truth is usually unknown in the field, researchers often rely on filler identifications, which are known errors, as a partial measure. Effect sizes are group averages; a technique that improves accuracy on average can still produce errors in a particular interview, and the Cognitive Interview and Self-Administered Interview increase incorrect as well as correct details. No study can determine whether a particular witness’s account or identification is accurate; research describes the conditions under which errors become more or less likely, and the accuracy of a particular identification remains a question for the factfinder.
Questions to Ask About This Research
When the Self-Administered Interview is said to improve accuracy, counsel can ask which account is meant, because Horry et al. (2021) found slightly lower accuracy in the initial written report but more detailed and more accurate later accounts. When the Cognitive Interview is said to produce reliable accounts, counsel can ask whether the expert acknowledges the smaller increase in incorrect details found by Memon et al. (2010) and whether the interview in this case followed the protocol. When Colloff et al. (2021) is offered to support or criticize a lineup, counsel can ask whether every filler matched the description, whether similarity was judged relative to the suspect, and whether online results with more than 10,000 participants have been replicated with real witnesses. When initial confidence is offered as evidence of accuracy, counsel can ask whether the procedure was double-blind, whether the witness’s words were recorded before any feedback, and whether the witness chose someone (Wixted et al., 2016; Sauer et al., 2010). These questions are explained in “Reading Research Claims: A Guide for Attorneys” on this site.
Improving Eyewitness Memory and the Law
Federal and Military Standards
Due process asks whether police used an identification procedure that was suggestive and unnecessary and, if so, whether the identification is nonetheless reliable under the totality of the circumstances (Stovall v. Denno, 1967; Simmons v. United States, 1968). Neil v. Biggers (1972) listed reliability factors, including opportunity to view, degree of attention, accuracy of the prior description, level of certainty, and elapsed time, and Manson v. Brathwaite (1977) made reliability the central question. Perry v. New Hampshire (2012) limited this screen to suggestive circumstances arranged by law enforcement; otherwise reliability is tested through cross-examination, jury instructions, and, where admissible, expert testimony. Because certainty and reported attention can be inflated by suggestion and feedback, some state courts have revised their frameworks in light of the research (State v. Henderson, 2011; State v. Lawson, 2012). Expert testimony is governed by Federal Rule of Evidence 702 as amended December 1, 2023, which requires the proponent to show that it is more likely than not that the rule’s requirements, including a reliable application of the method to the case, are met; Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (1993), General Electric Co. v. Joiner (1997), and Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael (1999), which extended gatekeeping to all expert testimony, supply the framework.
In courts-martial, Military Rule of Evidence 321 governs identification testimony. Under the rule, an identification process is unreliable, and therefore unlawful, if it is so suggestive as to create a substantial likelihood of misidentification; when the defense objects on that ground, the prosecution must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the identification was reliable under the circumstances, and a later identification that followed an unreliable one may be admitted only if the prosecution shows by clear and convincing evidence that it was not the result of the earlier one (Mil. R. Evid. 321(c)(1), (d)(6)(B)). The Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces has described the analysis as asking whether the process was unnecessarily suggestive and, if so, whether it created a substantial likelihood of misidentification, weighing the Biggers factors and other circumstances against the suggestiveness (United States v. Criswell, 2018). Expert testimony is assessed under Military Rule of Evidence 702 and United States v. Houser (1993); under Military Rule of Evidence 1102, the 2023 amendment to Federal Rule 702 became part of the military rule in 2025 (Joint Service Committee on Military Justice, 2025), and practitioners should confirm current status.
Arizona
A defendant who challenges a pretrial identification in Arizona may obtain a hearing outside the jury’s presence, commonly called a Dessureault hearing; if the pretrial procedure was unduly suggestive, the State must show by clear and convincing evidence that an in-court identification is not tainted by it (State v. Dessureault, 1969). The standard criminal jury instruction on identification (RAJI Standard Criminal 45) tells jurors that the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that an in-court identification is reliable and lists factors drawn from Biggers, including the witness’s opportunity to view, degree of attention, accuracy of prior descriptions, certainty at the pretrial identification, and elapsed time. State v. Chapple (1983), Arizona’s leading case on eyewitness expert testimony, held that excluding such testimony was an abuse of discretion on the facts of that case. Arizona Rule of Evidence 702 adopted the Daubert framework effective January 1, 2012, and was amended effective January 1, 2024 to track the 2023 federal amendment (Ariz. Sup. Ct. Order R-23-0004). Whether an agency followed its own procedures or recognized best practices can be developed at the hearing and before the jury, but that showing alone does not establish that a particular identification was accurate or mistaken.
Special Issues in Legal Practice
The principles described above apply with equal force to every party in a legal proceeding. The science operates the same way regardless of who is asking the questions, and the research summarized here does not by itself favor either side. What differs between the parties is not the science but the vantage point — the particular places where these issues tend to surface, and the particular errors each party is best positioned to guard against. The two summaries below identify those recurring issues. They are offered for orientation, not as litigation strategy; in every case the controlling question is what the evidence in that case will, and will not, support, and the expert’s role is to inform the trier of fact rather than to advocate for either side.
Special Issues for Prosecutors
The research supports several propositions prosecutors can legitimately present. Well-conducted interviews elicit more correct information with similar overall accuracy, and, in non-suggestive mock-crime studies, details first reported in a later, properly conducted interview were often accurate. Initial confidence, recorded in the witness’s own words at a double-blind, properly instructed identification, is informative when the witness chooses someone, and field data show high-confidence initial identifications under such conditions to be highly accurate. Prosecutors are well positioned to strengthen identification evidence by encouraging early recorded accounts, documentation of what each witness was told, and identification procedures that follow the recommendations and are fully recorded.
The research also counsels caution. Confidence first voiced at trial, or after feedback, repeated viewings, or preparation, carries little of the value of an initial recorded statement. Peripheral details that received little attention are less likely to have been stored, so a detail that first appears after repeated questioning or exposure to a possible source requires attention to how it emerged, and the Cognitive Interview and Self-Administered Interview increase incorrect as well as correct details. Compliance with best practices makes an identification easier to evaluate but does not by itself establish that it is correct.
Special Issues for Defense
The research supports several propositions defense counsel can legitimately present. Identification procedures can change the memory they test: an administrator who knows the suspect, biased instructions, a suspect who stands out, feedback, repeated procedures, and showups each increase the risk of error or of inflated confidence. Confidence that grew between the initial procedure and trial is not evidence of accuracy, and confidence in a non-identification is less informative. Expert testimony explaining these principles, combined with a record of what was and was not done, is a legitimate way to help the factfinder weigh an identification.
The research also counsels caution about the limits that apply to the defense. A missing safeguard shows an increased risk, not that a particular identification is mistaken, and an expert may not tell the factfinder that a particular witness is wrong. High initial confidence under fair, recorded procedures is informative, and, in non-suggestive mock-crime studies, new details in later interviews were often accurate. The same contamination principles apply to the accused’s own statements, which may include details learned during questioning.
This paper is for educational purposes only and is not legal advice. The author is a psychologist, not an attorney; summaries of law are general and must be verified against current authority or with a licensed attorney.
References
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Legal Authorities
Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993).
General Electric Co. v. Joiner, 522 U.S. 136 (1997).
Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137 (1999).
Manson v. Brathwaite, 432 U.S. 98 (1977).
Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188 (1972).
Perry v. New Hampshire, 565 U.S. 228 (2012).
Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377 (1968).
State v. Chapple, 135 Ariz. 281, 660 P.2d 1208 (1983).
State v. Dessureault, 104 Ariz. 380, 453 P.2d 951 (1969).
State v. Henderson, 208 N.J. 208, 27 A.3d 872 (2011).
State v. Lawson, 352 Or. 724, 291 P.3d 673 (2012).
Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293 (1967).
United States v. Criswell, 78 M.J. 136 (C.A.A.F. 2018).
United States v. Houser, 36 M.J. 392 (C.M.A. 1993).
Fed. R. Evid. 702.
Ariz. R. Evid. 702.
Ariz. Sup. Ct. Order R-23-0004 (amending Ariz. R. Evid. 702, effective Jan. 1, 2024).
Mil. R. Evid. 321.
Mil. R. Evid. 702.
Mil. R. Evid. 1102.
Revised Arizona Jury Instructions (Criminal), Standard Criminal 45 (Identification) (6th ed. 2022, 2025 update).
Related topic papers: Eyewitness Memory · Lineup Construction · Show-Ups · Confidence and Accuracy · The Misinformation Effect · The Testing Effect
Related topics from Arizona Forensic Services: Courts-Martial