Nydia Ayala

Dr. Ayala’s courses include Cognitive Psychology, Memory in Everyday Life, and Psychology & Law. Informed by theories of recognition memory and decision making, her research aims to improve the utility of police identification procedures. She is presently interested in legal decision makers’ assessments of the reliability of eyewitness evidence.

Nydia Ayala

Nydia Ayala

Assistant Professor of Cognitive and Behavioral Science

Website

Education

  • Ph.D. – Iowa State University (2024)
  • B.A. – Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada (2014)

Research

My research is broadly focused on the information police investigators can glean from eyewitness identification procedures such as police lineups. Any given witness demonstrates a myriad of behaviors when completing a lineup procedure—such as expressions of confidence, decision time, and vocalized decision strategies—that can inform on the likely accuracy of the witness’ identification decision. My lab is presently focused on answering two research questions:

First, what types of behaviors characterize accurate versus inaccurate witnesses?

Second, when presented with video recordings of witnesses completing lineup procedures, how do legal decision makers evaluate the reliability of the identification decisions?

Teaching

  • CBSC 112: Cognition
  • CBSC 295: Psychology & Law
  • CBSC 349: Memory in Everyday Life

Selected Publications

  • Ayala, N.T., & Smith, A.M. (2024) Predicting and postdicting eyewitness identification accuracy on forensic-object lineups. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/mac0000171
  • Smith, A. M., Ayala, N. T., & Ying, R. C. (2022). The rule out procedure: A signal-detection-informed approach to the collection of eyewitness identification evidence. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 29(1), 19–31. https://doi.org/10.1037/law0000373
  • Ayala, N. T., Smith, A. M., & Ying, R. C. (2022). The rule out procedure: Increasing the potential for police investigators to detect suspect innocence from eyewitness lineup procedures. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 11(4), 489–499. https://doi.org/10.1037/mac0000018