Participants' free-hand drawings of a target face can influence recognition accuracy and the confidence-accuracy correlation

Two experiments were conducted to examine the effects of participants' free-hand drawings on recognition accuracy and confidence for targets presented in a standard recognition paradigm and a lineup identification task. For both experiments, drawing a target influenced recognition accuracy and the confidence-accuracy correlation. In Experiment 1, the confidence-accuracy correlation was higher for participants completing a drawing than controls. Experiment 2 examined the drawings in relation to participants' decision to choose from the lineups. Once choosing was statistically controlled, the confidence-accuracy correlation for drawers was not higher than controls. These results suggest that the drawing influences the confidence-accuracy correlation by decreasing the likelighood of erroneously rejecting a target-present lineup. Copyright (C) 2002 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.