Identity crisis in eyewitness testimony: Exploring visual similarity judgments as an alternative to identification decisions

Eyewitness identification evidence is notoriously problematic, and the leading cause of wrongful convictions. The Australian Law Reform Commission has suggested that evidence of resemblance, rather than identity, is the most accurate evidence a witness can give. However, current practices in Australia continue to rely upon evidence of identity. This article explores identification evidence from legal and psychological perspectives. The relevant legislation and psychological research are reviewed and the problems with current identification procedures are highlighted. A new method for conceptualising and capturing identification evidence is proposed involving similarity (or resemblance) as an alternative mechanism for gauging ‘sameness’. The advantages of similarity are discussed and the results from a study comparing traditional binary identifications with continuum-based similarity judgments are reported.