Multimedia mug books: how multi should the media be?

The impact of allowing witnesses to choose the type of cues presented in multimedia mug books was explored in two experiments. In Experiment 1, participants viewed a videotaped crime and attempted to identify the perpetrator from one of three types of mug books: (a) dynamic-combined—participants could choose to follow static mug shots with a computerized video clip combining three types of dynamic cues: the person walking, talking, and rotating; (b) dynamic-separable—participants could limit the types of dynamic cues presented; and (c) static—just the static mug shot was presented. The dynamic-separable condition produced significantly fewer false positive foil identifications than the static condition. Within the dynamic-separable condition, voice was the most preferred cue. Experiment 2 explored the contribution of the individual cues. Participants attempted identifications from single dynamic cue mug books where only one type of cue was presented if a participant chose additional information. It was found that providing individual cues did not improve performance over the static mug book control. Based on the potential danger of witnesses choosing to rely on single dynamic cues, it was suggested that multimedia mug books should present dynamic cues in combination. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]