ABSTRACT Almost all eyewitness identification research involves suspects that match the perpetrator's description, but in reality appearance changes over time. Research shows that the correct identification rate, discriminability, and the confidence‐accuracy relationship are harmed by natural featural change (e.g., facial hair), and we expanded upon these results by testing for effects of featural and holistic change on eyewitness identification accuracy, the confidence‐accuracy relationship, and the response time‐accuracy relationship across both lineups and showups. In Experiment 1, we manipulated hairstyle, facial hair, or added/removed glasses. Experiments 2 and 3 included these featural changes as well as more holistic changes that come with the passage of time. Appearance change harmed the correct identification rate, discriminability, the confidence‐accuracy relationship, and the response time‐accuracy relationship across all experiments. These findings expand upon recent studies to show how correct identification rates from the field of eyewitness identification may be inflated due to the absence of natural appearance change.
Carlson et al. (Fri,) studied this question.