PrepTest 154, Section 4, Question 16
Researchers investigating the accuracy of eyewitness accounts staged(88 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(8 more words not shown)
- AEyewitnesses are no(23 more words not shown)
- BPeople tend to(13 more words not shown)
- CWhen specifically directed(23 more words not shown)
- DPeople fail to(19 more words not shown)
- EPeople are less(18 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
The right person isn't in the lineup. A correct response would have to leave everyone in it unselected. Yet 78 percent of the subjects pick someone when they haven't been warned that the person might be absent. We can imagine how that happens: someone in the lineup looks close enough, and the subject assumes the task must have a match. Looking similar isn't the same as being the person from the video.
Now give subjects a warning that the person might not be there. Misidentifications drop to 38 percent. The warning hasn't put the right person into the lineup; that person is still absent. It has made absence an option the subjects have been prompted to consider.
What we’re looking for
For the inference question, stay with what that contrast supports. Expecting a match seems to affect whether people think they've found one. Reducing that expectation makes mistaken identifications less likely. It doesn't eliminate them, and the study doesn't tell us how every other identification procedure would work.
Working the answers
- A
There is no group receiving an accurate verbal description in this study. Everyone described watches the video. Without results for the verbal-description group, we can't compare its accuracy with that of eyewitnesses. This adds an experiment we haven't been given.
- B
Maybe people sometimes want to please a questioner, but the study doesn't establish that motive here. It also doesn't report a stated expectation that subjects must identify someone. The evidence concerns a change in mistaken identifications after a warning, not proof that subjects are trying to satisfy someone else's wishes.
- C
Nobody is specifically directed by an authority figure to claim that an absent thing is present. Failing to warn subjects that the criminal may be absent isn't the same as ordering them to choose someone. This turns a possible mistaken assumption into compliance with an explicit instruction that the passage never gives.
- D
The task is identifying the person from the video, not reporting which people in the lineup resemble one another. The results don't establish an inability to recognize similarities without extra information. In fact, noticing a resemblance could be part of how a mistaken identification happens.
- ECorrect
The person from the video is absent in both versions of the study. When subjects are warned about possible absence, they are less likely to identify someone as that person. That supports the connection between a reduced expectation of seeing something and a reduced tendency to think it is there when it isn't. E fits the observed change without adding a new comparison group or an order to make a false claim.
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