When I give presentations to the legal / criminal justice system on memory science and eyewitness reliability, the topic of lineup superiority invariably comes up in Q&A. Here, I link a few resources (coming from the National Research Council, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, etc.) on ROC Analysis and the rescinded endorsement of the sequential lineup procedure being superior to the simultaneous lineup procedure.

Here is the 2014 National Research Council report, which (1) endorsed ROC analysis and (2) did not recommend sequential lineups over simultaneous lineups.

Here is the 2016 International Association of Chiefs of Police report, which dropped its longstanding support for the sequential lineup procedure over the simultaneous procedure.

Then here are some academic citations to check out on this topic: Mickes et al., 2012; Gronlund et al., 2012; Dobolyi & Dodson, 2013; Anderson et al., 2014; Carlson & Carlson, 2014; Wixted & Mickes, 2014; Seale-Carlisle & Mickes, 2016; Terrell et al., 2017; Seale-Carlisle et al. 2019. (This is a non-comprehensive list.)

Lineup superiority (discriminability; ROC analysis) and eyewitness reliability (is confidence diagnostic of accuracy and is it able to provide information above chance performance; CAC analysis) are separate matters, and using an inferior procedure does not inherently make an eyewitness’ report unreliable. Also, although lineup procedure has an effect on performance, the more critical issue when it comes to eyewitness misidentification is the commonplace-but-damaging practice of testing a witness’ memory for a particular suspect more than once.