374:, 2003). For his testimony, Wells conducted an experiment to examine the likelihood that all three of the witnesses would pick the defendant out of a lineup. The results suggested that the police officers manipulated the lineup due to the probability of picking the defendant being less than one in 1000. Reforms for legal standards in eyewitness identifications have been also noted in other cases such as State v. Larry R. Henderson and questions of constitutionality for eyewitness identifications have been raised (
199:. He serves as a consultant and a speaker to judges, law enforcement, defense counsel, and prosecution counsel regarding issues on eyewitness memory, crime investigation procedures, and evidence evaluation. Wells has published work in areas such as attitudes and persuasion, attribution, judgment, and decision-making. His contributions on eyewitness evidence have had a significant impact on psychological science and the legal system.
220:(Wells, 1990) in which are lineups conducted by someone who does not know which person in the lineup is the possible suspect and which are merely fillers. The idea of the double-blind lineup is to prevent inadvertent influence on the eyewitness from the lineup administrator. Double-blind lineup procedures are now required in many states and individual jurisdictions across the United States. In 2014, a
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developed. Most states now require double-blind administration of lineups, pre-lineup instructions to witnesses warning that the culprit might not be in the lineup, the use of lineup fillers so that the suspect does not stand out, and the collection of a confidence statement from the eyewitness at the time of any identification. These same reforms have now been adopted by the
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misidentifications are influenced by several methodological biases in the methods used by law enforcement to secure the identifications The system-variable versus estimator-variable distinction that Wells introduced in 1978 has so thoroughly permeated the nomenclature of the eyewitness literature that the terms are now commonly used without attribution to their source.
255:). System-variables are variables that are (or could be) under the control of the justice system (e.g., pre-lineup instructions to witnesses). Estimator-variables are variables that are not under the control of the justice system, but are circumstantial factors that influence identification (e.g. age, race).
238:
In the 1990s, Wells and his Ph.D. student Amy
Bradfield (Douglass) discovered that the confidence that eyewitnesses express in their identifications is highly malleable and can be dramatically inflated after making a mistaken identification through simple comments that seem to confirm their choice, a
283:
Wells, along with Steven D. Penrod, also wrote a chapter on "Eyewitness identification research: Strengths and weaknesses of alternative methods" for
Research Methods in Forensic Psychology. In this chapter, Wells and Penrod evaluate alternative research methods for eyewitness testimony, including
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Wells proposed that system-variable research would prove to have greater applied utility for criminal justice than estimator-variable research because system-variable research could inform the legal system of ways to reduce the chances of mistaken identification. Wells argued that the rate of
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Through staged crime experiments involving unsuspecting participants, Wells' research has significantly shaped a scientific understanding of issues surrounding the reliability of eyewitness identification evidence, and highlighting the role that inadequate lineup procedures play in leading to
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Wells' testimony in court cases and eyewitness research on system and estimator variables has influenced legislation and state
Supreme Court decisions. States such as New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Vermont, Illinois, and Connecticut, for example, now require double-blind lineups and other
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Wells worked with many states, starting with New Jersey in 2002 and North
Carolina in 2003, to implement state-wide reform of their eyewitness identification procedures. Other states later followed in making reforms to eyewitness identification procedures based on the early models that Wells
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In 2003, the United States Court of
Appeals 7th Circuit upheld Wells' testimony in a Chicago civil suit pertaining to lineup procedures in which the defendant was pardoned innocence after the allegation that the police officer induced the three witnesses to identify him as the perpetrator
28:
105:
Wells has also appeared on many major television shows discussing his research findings and presenting new ideas and alternatives to help reduce the number of false convictions that occur because of the unreliability of eyewitnesses. Some of his most notable appearances include:
338:(1977) about how to assess the reliability of eyewitness identification when there is suggestiveness involved in the identification. Wells' later writings have made an even stronger case for how the Court's approach is flawed given the findings in eyewitness science (
288:). Wells and his colleagues collected field experiment data from four police departments and published the data showing that roughly 1/3rd of all identifications made by eyewitnesses resulted in the selection of an innocent stand-in lineup member (
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Wells, G. L., & Penrod, S. D. (2011). Eyewitness identification research: Strengths and weaknesses of alternative methods. In B. Rosenfeld, & S. D. Penrod (Eds.), Research methods in forensic psychology. John Wiley and Sons, Hoboken, NJ.
275:). Wells has further developed these Bayesian methods to show how the amount of information (about guilt) gained from eyewitness identification evidence can be quite small and is highly dependent on other (non-witness) evidence.
525:. This book was published on May 25, 1984. The book examines topics such as eyewitness memory as a function of age, the adequacy of intuition in judging eyewitness memory, and the relationship between confidence and accuracy.
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Wells, G. L., Steblay, N. K., & Dysart, J. E. (2015). Double-bind photo-lineups using actual eyewitnesses: An experimental test of a sequential versus simultaneous lineup procedure. Law and Human
Behavior, 39, 1–14.
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Wells, G. L., & Quinlivan, D. S. (2009). Suggestive eyewitness identification procedures and the
Supreme Court's reliability test in light of eyewitness science: 30 years later. Law and Human Behavior, 33, 1-24.
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have helped to inform the legal system about why 75% of all DNA exonerations of innocent people who were convicted by juries in the United States are cases involving mistaken eyewitness identification testimony.
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Wells' 35+ years of research on eyewitness misidentification and work performed with law enforcement and prosecutors has made substantial contributions to court and legal procedures. His involvement with the
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Wells, G. L. & Bradfield, A. L. (1998). “Good, you identified the suspect:” Feedback to eyewitnesses distorts their reports of the witnessing experience. Journal of
Applied Psychology, 83, 360–376.
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Wells, G. L., & Luus, E. (1990). Police lineups as experiments: Social methodology as a framework for properly-conducted lineups. Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, 16, 106–117.
235:(Wells et al., 1979) distinguished between the number of people in a lineup (nominal lineup size) and the ability of the fillers (innocent stand-ins), to make the lineup fair to the suspect.
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from the study committee of the
National Academy of Sciences endorsed the idea of casting out the Manson v. Braithwaite approach to evaluating the reliability of eyewitness identifications.
342:). Recent state supreme court rulings have used Wells' critique of Manson vs. Braithwaite to fashion new approaches to assessing the reliability of eyewitness identification evidence (e.g.,
179:(Canada), and rose to the rank of full professor. In 1989, he became the department chair at Iowa State University. Currently, Wells is a distinguished professor of psychology at
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and chapters in books on his research dealing with eyewitness memory and eyewitness testimony. Some of the most notable journals that Wells has been published in include
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Wells, G. L. (1978). Applied eyewitness testimony research: System variables and estimator variables. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 1546–1557.
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In an influential article in 1978, Wells proposed a distinction between two different types of variables influencing the accuracy of eyewitness identification (
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Wells, G. L., Leippe, M. R., & Ostrom, T. M. (1979). Guidelines for empirically assessing the fairness of a lineup. Law and Human Behavior, 3, 285–293.
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58:. Wells has received many awards and honorary degrees, and he has gained recognition for his work and contributions to psychology and criminal justice.
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with a research interest in the integration of both cognitive psychology and social psychology and its interface with law. He has conducted research on
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Wells, G. L., & Lindsay, R. C. L. (1980). On estimating the diagnosticity of eyewitness nonidentifications. Psychological Bulletin, 88, 776–784.
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safeguards for eyewitness identification evidence that Wells advocated. Wells' work with the U.S. Department of Justice under Attorney General
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resulted in the first set of national recommendations for law enforcement regarding the collection and preservation of eyewitness evidence (
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On August 18, 2010, was awarded the first ever Stavish Chair in the Social Sciences at Iowa State University.
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mistaken eyewitness identification, and fostering false confidence amongst eyewitnesses.
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endorsed the idea that all lineups should be conducted using double-blind procedures.
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Wells has been cited in many periodicals across the country with his research on
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Wells also co-authored Eyewitness Testimony: Psychological Perspectives, with
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Wells was the first to call into question the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in
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to describe eyewitness performance in eyewitness identification experiments (
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Proper procedures for constructing and eyewitness identification procedures
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American Psychology-Law Society (APA Division 41, Fellow, past President)
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http://www.all-about-forensic-psychology.com/eyewitness-testimony.html
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and the Stavish Chair in the Social Sciences. He is a Fellow of the
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magazine, which discusses the unreliability of eyewitness testimony.
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116:, where he discussed the stress and accuracy of eyewitness memory
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Society of Experimental Social Psychology (Member and Fellow)
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https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/432/98/case.html
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Honorary doctorate from John Jay College of Criminal Justice
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http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/~glwells/mediashots.html
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Wells also introduced a measure of lineup fairness called
95:, which describes problems with eyewitness identification.
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magazine, in which Wells work and career are discussed.
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American Psychological Association (Member and Fellow)
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Distinguished Alumni Award, Department of Psychology,
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Distinguished Alumni Award, Department of Psychology,
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Midwestern Psychological Association (Charter Fellow)
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https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/409/188/
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Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition
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Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences
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Court procedures for evaluating eyewitness evidence
305:and appearances he has made with Jennifer Thompson
446:Personality and Social Psychology (APA Division 8)
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364:Eyewitness Evidence: A Guide for Law Enforcement
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70:. Some of the most notable periodicals include:
564:https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/178240.pdf
450:Society for Personality and Social Psychology
320:International Association of Chiefs of Police
163:Ph.D. (1977) Experimental Social Psychology,
42:is an American psychologist and a scholar in
661:James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award recipients
636:Ohio State University Graduate School alumni
579:https://casetext.com/case/newsome-v-mccabe-3
500:Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
504:Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied
417:Distinguished Contribution awards from the
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46:memory research. Wells is a professor at
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193:Society of Experimental Social Psychology
54:procedures, reliability and accuracy of
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398:Association for Psychological Sciences
334:(1973) and its later reaffirmation in
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441:Association for Psychological Science
424:Presidential Citation Award from the
189:Association for Psychological Science
461:Judgment and Decision Making Society
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651:21st-century American psychologists
396:James Mckeen Cattell Award for the
267:Wells introduced the idea of using
241:post-identification feedback effect
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195:. Wells is a past president of the
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544:http://wells.socialpsychology.org/
426:American Psychological Association
290:Wells, Steblay, & Dysart, 2015
284:laboratory and field experiments (
185:American Psychological Association
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157:B.Sc. Honors (1973) Psychology,
559:http://www.innocenceproject.org
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419:American Psychology-Law Society
382:Honors, awards, and memberships
197:American Psychology-Law Society
631:Kansas State University alumni
247:System and estimator variables
175:Wells began his career at the
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641:Iowa State University faculty
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516:Journal of Applied Psychology
279:Laboratory and field research
216:Wells introduced the idea of
486:Wells has authored over 175
226:National Academy of Sciences
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474:American Judicature Society
387:Distinguished Professor at
340:Wells & Quinlivan, 2009
224:from a study committee the
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336:Manson versus Braithwaite
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56:eyewitness identification
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286:Wells & Penrod, 2011
239:phenomenon known as the
407:Kansas State university
296:Real world implications
159:Kansas State University
512:Law and Human Behavior
492:Psychological Bulletin
376:Perry v. New Hampshire
233:functional lineup size
508:Psychological Science
496:American Psychologist
413:Ohio State University
389:Iowa State University
181:Iowa State University
177:University of Alberta
165:Ohio State University
87:The Los Angeles Times
48:Iowa State University
32:Gary L. Wells in 2011
218:double-blind lineups
208:Lineup presentations
465:Psychonomic Society
443:(Member and Fellow)
332:Neil versus Biggers
269:Bayesian statistics
263:Bayesian statistics
93:The Chicago Tribune
656:Memory researchers
372:Newsome vs. McCabe
346:in New Jersey and
344:State v. Henderson
81:The New York Times
303:Innocence Project
68:eyewitness memory
62:Media appearances
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523:Elizabeth Loftus
203:Notable research
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529:References
360:Janet Reno
191:, and the
138:60 Minutes
128:Today Show
99:New Yorker
44:eyewitness
152:Education
488:articles
452:(Fellow)
133:Court TV
113:48 Hours
514:, and
352:report
222:report
187:, the
171:Career
119:NBC's
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145:Oprah
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