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Despite the use of planting plans and engineering drawings, many landowners find it difficult to conceptualize what a future conservation practice or system will actually look like on their landscape. [...]

Two experiments investigated new dimensions of the effect of confirming feedback on eyewitness identification confidence using target-absent and target-present lineups and (previously unused) unbiased witness instructions (i.e., 'offender not present' option highlighted). In Experiment 1, participants viewed a crime video and were later asked to try to identify the thief from an 8-person target-absent photo array. Feedback inflated witness confidence for both mistaken identifications and correct lineup rejections. With target-present lineups in Experiment 2, feedback inflated confidence for correct and mistaken identifications and lineup rejections. Although feedback had no influence on the confidence-accuracy correlation, it produced clear overconfidence. Confidence inflation varied with the confidence measure reference point (i.e., retrospective vs. current confidence) and identification response latency.

The criminal justice system relies heavily on eyewitness identification for investigating and prosecuting crimes. Psychology has built the only scientific literature on eyewitness identification and has warned the justice system [...]

The authors investigated eyewitnesses' retrospective certainty (see G. L. Wells & A. L. Bradfield, 1999). The authors hypothesized that external influence from the lineup administrator would damage the certainty-accuracy relation by inflating the retrospective certainty of inaccurate eyewitnesses more than that of accurate eyewitnesses (N = 245). Two variables were manipulated: eyewitness accuracy (through the presence or absence of the culprit in the lineup) and feedback (confirming vs. control). Confirming feedback inflated retrospective certainty more for inaccurate eyewitnesses than for accurate eyewitnesses, significantly reducing the certainty--accuracy relation (from r = .58 in the control condition to r = .37 in the confirming feedback condition). Double-blind testing is recommended for lineups to prevent these external influences on eyewitnesses.

The U.S. Department of Justice released the first national guide for collecting and preserving eyewitness evidence in October 1999. Scientific psychology played a large role in making a case for these procedural guidelines as well as in setting a scientific foundation for the guidelines, and eyewitness researchers directly participated in writing them. The authors describe how eyewitness researchers shaped understanding of eyewitness evidence issues over a long period of time through research and theory on system variables. Additional pressure for guidelines was applied by psychologists through expert testimony that focused on deficiencies in the procedures used to collect the eyewitness evidence. DNA exoneration cases were particularly important in leading U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno to notice the eyewitness literature in psychology and to order the National Institute of Justice to coordinate the development of national guidelines. The authors describe their experience as members of the working group, which included prosecutors, defense lawyers, and law enforcement officers from across the country.

Previous studies examining the validity of measures of trait aggressiveness either have been retrospective studies or have used laboratory aggression as the criterion behavior. Can a measure of trait aggressiveness predict nonlaboratory physical aggression? The Physical Aggression subscale of the Aggression Questionnaire was completed by 91 high school hockey players prior to the start of the season. At the end of the season, these trait aggressiveness scores were regressed on minutes in the penalty box for aggressive penalties (e.g., fighting, slashing, tripping) and minutes in the penalty box for nonaggressive penalties (e.g., delay of game, illegal equipment, too many players). As expected, preseason trait aggressiveness scores predicted aggressive penalty minutes (r = .33) but not nonaggressive penalty minutes (r = .04).

People viewed a security video and tried to identify the gunman from a photospread. The actual gunman was not in the photospread and all eyewitnesses made false identifications (n = 352). Following the identification, witnesses were given confirming feedback ('Good, you identified the actual suspect'), disconfirming feedback ('Actually, the suspect is number _____'), or no feedback. The manipulations produced strong effects on the witnesses' retrospective reports of (a) their certainty, (b) the quality of view they had, (c) the clarity of their memory, (d) the speed with which they identified the person, and (e) several other measures. Eyewitnesses who were asked about their certainty prior to the feedback manipulation (Experiment 2) were less influenced, but large effects still emerged on some measures. The magnitude of the effect was as strong for those who denied that the feedback influenced them as it was for those who admitted to the influence.

The Global Environmental Facility's recommendations for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in developing countries such as China were found to have a general high rate of return. Programs to limit carbon dioxide emissions can have large potentials in a country such as China, which relies on the industrial sector for some 75% of energy production. Thirteen our of twenty-four cases were forecast to produce negative costs per ton fo carbon dioxide emission reduction. Nineteen out of twenty-four would yield a positive net benefit per ton of carbon dioxide emission reduction.

We used signal detection modeling of a large data set to show that forensic cartridge-case examiners were highly unlikely to commit false positives or false negatives but appear to be strongly biased against true negatives (Smith & Wells, 2024). Specifically, forensic cartridge-case examiners were far more likely to claim that the results were inconclusive when the shell casings did not match than to say the results were inconclusive when the shell casings matched. We presented evidence that some examiners were rendering inconclusives despite almost certainly knowing they were looking at actual nonmatches. Scurich and John's (2024) commentary on our article ignored this shocking finding and failed to treat inconclusives and nonmatches as separate outcomes. Scurich and John (2024) instead concluded that forensic examiners were not strongly averse to false positives and that examiners adopted different decision policies for different firearm brands. We show that the data contradict both conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because people often do not moderate trait inferences when consensus is manipulated, it has been concluded that people neglect consensus information. Use of a Bayesian model, however, shows that there is no logical imperative that behavioral base-rate information must moderate trait inferences for a target's behavior Instead, changes in consensus information can be accommodated by changes in the assumed prevalence of relevant traits in the population. Across two scenarios (N = 84), consensus manipulations had no effect on participants' trait inferences from the target's behavior but had robust effects on participants' assumptions about traits for the average person in a relevant population. Although attributors are unlikely to be using a Bayesian reasoning process, their responses do not violate Bayesian reasoning, and they clearly are not neglecting consensus information. A distinction is drawn between neglecting consensus information and using consensus information in a manner consistent with a dispositional bias., People sometimes ignore information that is relevant to making a particular judgment, sometimes use information that is not relevant to a particular judgment, and sometimes use relevant information incorrectly. Conclusions [...]

Two studies examined perceptions of child and adult eyewitness' credibility. In Study 1, college students evaluated transcribed testimonies of 8-year-old and adult witnesses to a videotaped stage crime. Half were misinformed about the witness's age (i. e., either believing a child's testimony was provided by an adult or vice versa). Neither actual age nor ostensible age affected participants' evaluations. In Study 2, adults (N = 85) viewed videotaped testimonies of 8-year-old, 12-year-old, and adult eyewitnesses. Half viewed 1 witness's testimony and then evaluated his or her credibility. The others viewed only a still frame of 1 witness, then imagined the testimony the witness had provided, and finally evaluated his or her credibility without having actually heard the testimony. Young children were judged more favorably when their entire testimony, rather than a still frame, was viewed. This was not true for the older eyewitness. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)