The potential influence of eyewitnesses’ metacognitions on identification decisions when confronted with a police lineup is largely unexplored. In two experiments, we investigated whether eyewitnesses’ pre-lineup memory strength inferences influenced the likelihood of their choosing from a lineup. In experiment 1, manipulating witnesses’ memory strength inferences, while holding memory encoding and retention conditions constant, increased positive identifications from culprit-absent lineups when witnesses inferred they had a poor memory for the culprit. In experiment 2, witnesses who had been interviewed and experienced difficult rather than easy recall of the culprit that was likely suggestive of a poor memory made more positive identifications from both culprit-absent and culprit-present lineups than those who experienced easy recall. Signal detection analyses supported a criterion shift account that proposes that witnesses who infer they have a relatively poor memory may demand less evidence for a positive identification than if they inferred a good memory. Thus, witnesses’ memory strength inferences may influence identification decisions independent of encoding conditions and lineup characteristics.

在面对警察阵容时，目击者的元认知对身份识别决定的潜在影响在很大程度上尚未得到探索。在两个实验中，我们调查了目击者的阵容前记忆强度推断是否会影响他们从阵容中选择的可能性。在实验 1 中，操纵证人的记忆强度推断，同时保持记忆编码和保留条件不变，当证人推断他们对罪魁祸首的记忆力不佳时，增加了从没有罪魁祸首的阵容中的积极识别。在实验 2 中，与那些经历过容易回忆的人相比，接受过采访并经历过难而不是容易回忆起可能暗示记忆力差的罪魁祸首的证人从没有和有罪魁祸首的阵容中得到了更积极的认同。信号检测分析支持了一个标准转移帐户，该帐户建议推断他们记忆力相对较差的证人可能比他们推断出良好的记忆力需要更少的证据来进行正面识别。因此，证人的记忆强度推断可能会影响独立于编码条件和阵容特征的识别决策。