Lana Dranow

Author: Lana Dranow | Major: Psychology | Semester: Spring 2023

My name is Lana Dranow and I was an Honors Psychology major with both Legal Studies and Social Work minors. I completed my undergraduate honors thesis in the Psychology Department in the Spring of 2023 under the supervision of Dr. James Lampinen, In the fall, I will attend Belmont University College of Law in Nashville, Tennessee, where I will pursue a Juris Doctor degree.

My research examines the psychological processes involved in eyewitness memory and identification procedures, but more specifically why lineups perform better than showups. Lineups are what are most typically shown in TV shows and movies- where six similar-appearing people (but known to police to be innocent) called “fillers” are lined up against a wall and an eyewitness is asked if they recognize any of the individuals to be the person they witnessed commit the crime. Showups, on the other hand, are when an investigator shows only one photo of a potential suspect to the eyewitness. It is widely held that lineups elicit more correct suspect identifications and fewer incorrect suspect identifications than showups. There are two competing theories that may be behind this: diagnostic feature detection theory and differential filler siphoning theory. Diagnostic feature detection theory says that fillers enable the eyewitness to recognize shared features to identify which are the innocent fillers versus the guilty suspect. Filler siphoning theory says that the presence of fillers draws incorrect choices away from the innocent suspect. My research was a replication and extension of a study conducted by leading researchers in the field of eyewitness memory. To compare the two theories, I used their novel identification procedure, the simultaneous showup, which functioned as a combination of both a lineup and a showup- participants randomly assigned to this group were shown a lineup array of six photos, but one of the photos had a red box surrounding the suspect. As part of my extension, after participants watched a mock crime video and completed other tasks, participants were asked to share how the fillers impacted their guilty or not guilty decision. Overall, my research provided overwhelming support for the filler siphoning theory. Research like mine and others within the field of eyewitness memory is critical to helping reform police practices to ultimately reduce the number of wrongful convictions due to mistaken eyewitness identifications.

Psychology has always been a major area of interest to me; more particularly, memory. I also knew I wanted to attend law school, so I wanted to study something connected to the law during my undergraduate education. In my sophomore year, I took cognitive psychology which was taught by Dr. Lampinen. In that class, he mentioned that he ran a research laboratory that perfectly connected both of my interests, called the Law and Memory Processes (LAMP) Lab. I was fascinated with his current honors students’ research topics and decided to apply to become a research assistant in his lab for the fall of my junior year. After working in Dr. Lampinen’s lab that semester, I decided to ask if he would be willing to be my research mentor for my honors thesis! Thankfully, he said yes, and together, we began the process of choosing a research topic. During our weekly lab meetings when I was a research assistant, one of the graduate students, Amber Giacona, presented prior research on eyewitness identification procedures and the psychological mechanisms within. Recalling this, I decided I wanted to investigate this specific topic further, which is how I landed on my research topic. Dr. Lampinen and Amber both played critical roles in my research, and I cannot thank them enough for their support. While they made my undergraduate research process seamless, the most difficult part of the process was recruiting participants. For a while, I struggled to continue to recruit participants to partake in my study after the initial rush of signups. However, I learned to get creative. I contacted other faculty members and asked them to help me recruit more participants and messaged in my GroupMe’s. This proved to be successful, and I ended up with a final sample of over 1,000 participants!

While the undergraduate research process was difficult at times, I learned so much not only about research in general, but about myself! I learned the importance of not waiting until the last minute to begin writing. Luckily, I spread the writing over the course of my last academic year, so it didn’t feel too overwhelming, especially since I was so interested in my topic. That’s one of my biggest pieces of advice- find a topic that you truly are fascinated by and you will enjoy the whole process! While I didn’t have the opportunity to present at a conference, I am currently working on revising my honors thesis to have it submitted to a journal. I am moving to Nashville, Tennessee to attend law school in August! I know that the background knowledge in criminal law I have acquired through my undergraduate research experience will serve me well in the future.