Mock juror interpretations of ecphoric confidence ratings

Can ecphoric confidence ratings help jurors evaluate eyewitness identification evidence? Compared to retrospective confidence ratings, ecphoric ratings provide additional information about witnesses’ ability to discriminate between identified suspects and fillers. Experiments 1 and 1a manipulated identification/suspect confidence (90% vs. 50%) and discrimination information (good, poor, no information) betweenparticipants. Verdicts were influenced by suspect/identification confidence, but not discrimination information. However, within-participant manipulations of discrimination information (Experiment 2) affected verdicts. Thus, participants can utilise ecphoric confidence ratings, but may not intuit the discrimination information in isolation. Instructions on interpreting ecphoric ratings (Experiment 3) produced similar discrimination effects in a one-off (between-subjects) design.