Eyewitness Testimonies Revisited

The above graph shows some preliminary results from the SKS Eyewitness Testimony Experiment. 74 students and faculty were shown a brief video clip in which a person is engaged in some type of suspicious activity on the roof of a building. When asked to identify the perpetrator in a line-up, most incorrectly picked suspect #3 (27 IDs). On average, they were 70% confident with their answer. Only five answered correctly and recognized that the perpetrator was not in the line-up.