A preidentification questioning effect: Serendipitously increasing correctrejections

A study designed to test the effects of delay between crime and lineup on i dentification accuracy produced an unusually high rate of correct rejection from target-absent, simultaneous lineups (J. E. Dysart 1999). Examining th e procedures indicated that one question included in a preidentification qu estionnaire differed from those used previously. The question asked witness es if they believed they would be able to correctly reject a target-absent lineup An experiment (N = 138) was conducted to explore the impact of preid entification questions, including this new question, on witness accuracy. R esults revealed-that asking witnesses these questions, prior to viewing the lineup, significantly increased correct rejections of target-absent simult aneous lineups.