An Iowa State study on eyewitness identification will be published this week in the Journal of Applied Science, a prominent feat for ISU and criminal identification methods, said Gary Wells, professor of psychology and distinguished professor of liberal arts and sciences.

The results found by Wells and his research assistant Amy Bradfield, graduate student in psychology, may have a great effect on the national guidelines for criminal identification.

Wells said eyewitness accounts are an important form of evidence in real court cases, and with recent use of DNA evidence, many prisoners have been released because they were falsely convicted.

“Mistaken identification is the primary cause of wrongful conviction,” Wells said.

The experiment began last year and lasted for six months. Participants were made into eyewitnesses by watching a video, then asked to identify the perpetrator from a line-up.

The problem was that the real perpetrator was not included in the line up, yet all 352 participants chose one of the suspects as the person they saw on the video.

“If you present an eyewitness with a line-up without the real perpetrator, they will pick someone anyway,” Wells said.

Wells said he found this puzzling and wanted to find out why many eyewitnesses, while wrong about their selection, are so absolutely certain they are right.

To do this, Wells and Bradfield made the variable factor in the experiment the type of response the participants received from the administrator of the line-up.

After the participants made their identifications, some were told, “Oh, good. You identified the actual suspect,” while some heard, “Actually, the real suspect is X,” and some were told nothing.

“By getting that kind of confirming feedback they became very certain about their identifications and started to report other things they ‘remembered’ about the suspect that were all wrong,” Wells said.

Their confidence turned the participants into highly credible but completely mistaken witnesses, he said.

“This is important because this is the kind of thing that happens in real cases,” he said.

Wells said he chose to experiment with this subject because he has been involved in a number of real court cases across the country in which an eyewitness has clearly identified the wrong person.

He asked himself, “What is it that makes an eyewitness absolutely certain while being completely wrong? Is there some way the criminal justice system is causing this false certainty?”

Wells and Bradfield’s answer to this question will appear in the journal, which is “the premiere scientific psychological journal for findings that are practical or have applied significance,” Wells said.

When an article is submitted to a journal such as the Journal of Applied Science, it goes through a rigorous process of review and approval before it gets published. Wells said most articles that are submitted are rejected.

Bradfield said she is happy about this achievement.

She helped Wells with the design and running of the experiment and with writing up the article to submit it for publication.

“I just finished my second year [of graduate school], so this is kind of a new experience for me to see something I’ve been working on, so well received,” she said.

Bradfield said she hopes people understand the implications of the study and take something away from it, and she hopes it makes a difference in the legal system somewhere.

Bradfield’s hopes may come true.

“It turns out that this [topic] is very timely,” Wells said.

The United States Department of Justice has taken up this kind of issue and appointed Wells to chair a national panel which will make new national guidelines for criminal identification.

“It’s a very important development,” he said.

Wells said he feels ISU should get a lot of credit for this achievement. Not only did the experiment take place at ISU, but students were used in the experiment.

“I’ve been supported by Iowa State and the National Science Foundation to do this work,” he said.