Opinion ID: 2222943
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Recognition Encourages Positive Identification of Things Merely Similar.

Text: Wade and Simmons both note [16a] that the very process of sight recognition presents dangers that persons who are merely similar may be perceived as one and the same. Wade leads us to the explanation found in Wigmore, The Science of Judicial Proof (1937), §§ 250-253, and also noted in Wall, Eye-Witness Identification in Criminal Cases (1965), p 10. The gist of it is that Recognition depends on similarity and therein lies the key to false recognition and major opportunities for unintentional, subtle suggestion. When we see something out there, the original mental record consists of an attitude or sensation composed of the various items in the object perceived. This attitude or sensation is preserved in the memory (more or less imperfectly) in the combination of the various perceived items by a process sometimes called association. What occurs during the recognition process is that a subconscious attitude or sensation of sameness or resemblance is aroused. This attitude or sensation of sameness is accompanied by a subjective feeling of familiarity when there are elements of similarity between the new and the previous situation. [17a] The way the mental processes operate in a hypothetical case (as lawyers are so fond of) is explained by Wigmore, supra, § 251. Dean Wigmore posits a simple case. There are two people, A and B. Each has perceivable characteristics (whatever they are) by which people identify him. PERSON A has perceivable characteristics which fall into patterns ............................... [b c d e f g] PERSON B has perceivable characteristics which fall into patterns ............................... [b c d m n p] You, the reader, have seen only person A previously and are now confronted with either A or B (you don't know which). THE QUESTION IS: What are your chances of mistaking PERSON B for A? Now this is completely apart from any suggestion intentional or otherwise but considers only the relationship between perception and memory as they operate in the recognition process. Four stages in the mental process which will produce the recognition are suggested by Wigmore: (1) First, the mind, when perceiving A, perceived a pattern, made up of items (say) b c d e f g. (2) Next the observer's memory recorded an impression of this pattern, all or part, i.e. all or some of the items b c d e f g associated. (3) Next, on being shown A or B, the mind perceives all or some of these items in the person perceived; if that person is A, the items perceivable will be b c d e f g; but if that person is B, the items perceivable will be (say) b c d m n p. (4) Next, comes the recollection of the originally recorded impressions by the stimulated process of association; and here the result depends on what took place mentally in stage (2) above: Wigmore, supra, § 251, p 535.