Cindy and Linda Are Both Eyewitnesses to a Bank Robbery

question 51

Multiple Choice

Cindy and Linda are both eyewitnesses to a bank robbery. At the police station, they each select Mike from a police lineup and say, "He's the thief!" It turns out, though, that Mike has been a customer at the store at which Cindy works while Linda has never before seen Mike. With this background

• A) Cindy's identification is more valuable to the police because she has an advantage of familiarity and context.
• B) both identifications are likely to be accurate because face recognition draws on specialized mechanisms that work effectively with both familiar and unfamiliar faces.
• C) Cindy's identification is more valuable to the police because her recognition of Mike will be more fluent than Linda's, thanks to the previous encounters.
• D) Linda's identification is more valuable to the police because Cindy may have been misled by the fact that Mike seemed familiar because of her other encounters with him.