Multimedia mug books: How multi should the media be?

The impact of allowing witnesses to choose the type of cues presented in mu ltimedia mug books was explored in two experiments. In Experiment 1, partic ipants viewed a videotaped crime and attempted to identify the perpetrator from one of three types of mug books: (a) dynamic-combined - participants c ould choose to follow static mug shots with a computerized video clip combi ning three types of dynamic cues: the person walking, talking, and rotating ; (b) dynamic-separable - participants could limit the types of dynamic cue s presented; and (c) static-just the static mug shot was presented. The dyn amic-separable condition produced significantly fewer false positive foil i dentifications than the static condition. Within the dynamic-separable cond ition, voice was the most preferred cue. Experiment 2 explored the contribu tion of the individual cues. Participants attempted identifications from si ngle dynamic cue mug books where only one type of cue was presented if a pa rticipant chose additional information. It was found that providing individ ual cues did not improve performance over the static mug book control. Base d on the potential danger of witnesses choosing to rely on single dynamic c ues, it was suggested that multimedia mug books should present dynamic cues in combination. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.