PrepTest 107, Section 4, Question 17
Studies of the reliability of eyewitness identifications show(52 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(10 more words not shown)
- AThe confidence people(20 more words not shown)
- BUnless an eyewitness(20 more words not shown)
- CIf several eyewitnesses(26 more words not shown)
- DPolice officers are(16 more words not shown)
- EThe accuracy of(16 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
A confident witness can be wrong. A hesitant witness can be right. So I understand why we should not treat confidence as a reliable measure of accuracy.
But how does that lead to the advice about lineups? The recommendation is to stop witnesses from hearing one another identify suspects. The earlier statements concern confidence and accuracy. We need a connection between hearing another witness and the problem those statements describe.
Imagine a hesitant witness hearing someone else identify a suspect with great confidence. The hesitant witness might start doubting their own memory or become more confident simply because another person agrees. That would make the interaction relevant, even if the other witness's confidence tells us little about whether that person is right.
What we’re looking for
The question asks for a principle underlying the advice. I would look for something about witnesses influencing one another. We need not have the exact wording predicted. We need a reason the confidence problem gives police a basis for keeping the identifications separate.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
Hearing what another person claims to have seen can affect our confidence in our own memory. That supplies the missing connection. The passage says confidence can change without accuracy changing, and A gives a reason hearing other witnesses could produce that kind of influence. Keeping witnesses from hearing one another helps avoid confidence being shaped by others' claims rather than by the witness's own memory. We do not have to assume their memories actually become less accurate for this concern to matter.
- B
How many suspects a witness sees is a different issue from whether witnesses hear one another. Police could present several suspects while keeping each witness's identification private. B therefore does not connect the evidence about confidence with the recommended restriction.
- C
Agreement among several witnesses could be useful evidence about the suspect. But this answer does not explain why witnesses should make their identifications without hearing one another. It gives a way to assess multiple identifications, not the connection between their interaction and confidence that the argument needs.
- D
This attributes a preference to police officers. Even if they cared more about confidence than accuracy, we would still need to know how hearing other witnesses affects confidence. D leaves out the connection that would make the specific lineup restriction follow from the concern in the passage.
- E
Conflicting accounts can give us a reason to investigate further. For example, if one witness identifies Bob and another identifies John, we have a disagreement to resolve. But E says nothing about whether hearing another account changes a witness's confidence. Like C, it concerns how to assess different accounts without explaining the recommended separation.
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