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The influence of item difficulty on the relationship between eyewitness confidence and accuracy
Author(s) -
Kebbell Mark R.,
Wagstaff Graham F.,
Covey Judith A.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
british journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.536
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8295
pISSN - 0007-1269
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8295.1996.tb02614.x
Subject(s) - psychology , credence , eyewitness memory , variance (accounting) , eyewitness identification , eyewitness testimony , social psychology , low confidence , cognitive psychology , statistics , data mining , computer science , recall , mathematics , accounting , relation (database) , business
Research indicates that the confidence eyewitnesses express in information heavily influences both the investigative process and the credence which jurors give to eyewitness testimony. However, studies in this area suggest that there is either no relationship or only a small positive relationship between eyewitness confidence and accuracy. Nevertheless, it is argued here that researchers may have paid insufficient attention to the issue of item difficulty, and have used statistical procedures that fail to consider highly accurate responses with low variance. In an attempt to address these issues, two experiments were conducted which measured confidence–accuracy in response to information seen in video films. In each case questions were used that ranged in difficulty. Higher confidence–accuracy correlations than are usually reported were found in both experiments. Furthermore, when participants were ‘absolutely certain’ that a piece of information was correct, they almost invariably were accurate.