COGNITIVE APPROACH-Pozzulo et al (LINEUPS)

Question 1

state the psychology being investigated (terms)

Answer 1

-Memory and false positives
- Eye witness lineups in children
- cognitive and social factors in eye witness identification

Question 2

What is the background

Answer 2

Pozzulo wanted to investigate whether children are able to give a false positives when the culprit is not present In a lineup for eye witness testimonies.
- this may be due to social factors rather than cognitive ones such as pleasing the authority figure
- the child may not view “no one as a response”
- the child may feel that they would get into trouble for not complying

Question 3

What were the aims of the study

Answer 3

• To investigate whether children would give more false positives than adults
• To investigate the role of social and cognitive factors in line-ups on children performance as eyewitnesses

Question 4

What were the 4 predictions that the aim was testing

Answer 4

> > Children will be as good as adults when identifying a target present line-up for cartoon
children will be worse than adults when identifying human faces in a target present lineup
Children will be worse than adults when identifying cartoon faces for a large absent line up
children will be worse than adults when identifying human faces for a target absent line-up

Question 5

What were the 3 IVs of the study

Answer 5

-Age of participants (Child Vs Adult)
-Lineups (Target present or absent)
-Target (Cartoon Vs Human)

Question 6

describe 4 features of the sample of children

Answer 6

-59 in total
-ages were 4-7 years with the mean age 4.98
-there were 21 females and 38 males
-From pre-kindergarten in Eastern Ontario Canada.

Question 7

Describe 4 features of the adult group

Answer 7

-53 in total
-ages ranged 17-30 years
-36 females and 17 males
-Were all from the introductory psychology Participant Pool from Canada

Question 8

What type of experiment was this

Answer 8

-Laboratory experiment

Question 9

Describe the form they used on the participants and why they used it

Answer 9

The demographic and cartoon watching form.
- 8 questions
- questioned their age, ethnicity, how many per household etc
- how long they watch the 2 targeted cartoons
- to test their familiarity with the 2 cartoons

Question 10

Describe the Human face targets and what they were doing in the videos

Answer 10

-a 6 second clip
-each target was shown for 2-3 secs
-filmed in colour
-muted
Male target- was wearing his coat and leaving his house
Female target- was brushing her hair

Question 11

Describe the Cartoon face target

Answer 11

-6 seconds
-each target was shown for 2-3 secs
-filmed in colour
-muted
Dora- She was talking to the audience
Diego - Putting on a pair of gloves for safety

Question 12

Describe the features of the foils for both cartoon and adult

Answer 12

• was in black and white
• All 4/3 foils shared similar characteristics to the targets e.g hair length
• pictures were displayed from the shoulder to up
• similar clothing

Question 13

What were the participants told to point to when they believe the target is absent

Answer 13

A silhouette box

Question 14

How was the procedure counterbalanced in Pozzulo

Answer 14

In all 4 line up tasks, the position of the target or its matching was counterbalanced

Question 15

describe the 3 female researchers and describe why that clothing style was chosen

Answer 15

-Professional- casual clothing e.g blouse, dress pants
-Not overly formal as it may influence the children’s responses through social pressure as it could suggest authority

Question 16

Why were filler questions used

Answer 16

So to reduce demand characteristics by hiding the main questions, irrelevant questions are used so as to not guess the aim

Question 17

What was the DV of the study

Answer 17

was whether the participants could correctly identify if the target was present or not present.

Question 18

Mention any 2 results shown in the study

Answer 18

+Any of the 4 predictions
+all participants performed significantly better for cartoon face lineups than they did for human faces

Question 19

How was the DV operationalised or measured for each target condition

Answer 19

Target present- Correct identification rate
Target Absent- Correct rejection rate

Question 20

Give 2 conclusions of the study

Answer 20

> Pozzuolo concluded that results from the target absent lineup for cartoons were not due to cognitive factors but instead due to social factors due to the previous task having ceiling effects
>The effects of the cognitive vs social demands are relative and not absolute Both target lineups will be affected by both
conditions
>Children are worse at identifying human faces than they are with cartoons and are more likely to get flase positves

Question 21

State the social factors seen in the study

Answer 21

-Social instructions / demands
-social pressure
-the tendency to want to please the researcher
-expectation to select

Question 22

State the individual factors seen in the study

Answer 22

-Memory , recall
-judgement
-comparing
-decision making
-attentive
-planning
-some children may be more familiar with the cartoons

Question 23

what two measures design did they use and how

Answer 23

Repeated- all participants performed in all conditions of the IV (target present or absent)
Independent- This was how the participants were allocated, i.e by age (IV)

Question 24

Suggest how the study was controlled

Answer 24

• same video clips with same photographs
• same set of questions about the videos
• each video clip had the same controls such as same duration
• the counterbalancing used for the target
• the dressing of the researchers was kept professional casual.

Question 25

What strengths other than reliability was shown

Answer 25

-Internal validity ~ Participants were told minimal info about the study showing that the only variable they are testing is age.
-Quantitative data was used

Question 26

What were the limitations of the study

Answer 26

• Ecological validity ~ The situation itself was not legit and may not be generalisable to an actual criminal investigation
• Validity~ Believing you are in a memory task and TV and cartoon task may have different effects on recall

Question 27

How was the study ethically strong

Answer 27

+The videos shown were not crime related hence, reduced any potential psychological harm on children
+Right to withdraw as children were monitored
+Informed consent

Question 28

How can the study apply to everyday life

Answer 28

Could improve the reliability of child witnesses
by reducing the social pressure on children to give a response

Question 29

What do the terms correct rejection and false positive mean

Answer 29

Correct rejection- The participants were able to correctly identify the absence of the target and not chose a foil
False positive- The participants were aware on the absence or presence of the target yet chose an affirmative yet incorrect target

Question 30

Evaluate the use of children in the study

Answer 30

Children are vulnerable to social pressure so:
+seeked parental consent as may be complex
+children were told they would not get into trouble and that they could change their minds
+conducted craft activities with the children
-children may be prone to demand characteristics or may simply please the researcher which could reduce validity
-Children cannot be fully debriefed due to a lack of understanding or complexity of the research

Question 31

Describe the selection process for Human foils

Answer 31

• The foils were selected from a pool of 90 female faces and 90 male faces
• they were selected based on similar appearances based on hair length, colour and general facial structure.
• the foils were rated based on how similar they were by 3 researchers. The one with the highest rate would be selected.

Question 32

Describe the selection process for cartoon foils

Answer 32

• were selected from a range of readily available cartoon images on the internet
• selected based on similarities on hair length, colour and facial structure

Question 33

What were the free call descriptions used for the child participants

Answer 33

” what did the cartoon/ person look like?”
“Do you remember anything else?”

*ADDITIONALLY: “Do you remember anything else from the video?”

Question 34

What was the standardised instruction used for the lineups

Answer 34

” Please look at the photos. The person/cartoon from the video may or may not be here. If you see the person/cartoon, please point to the photo, if you do not see them please point to this box.

Question 35

How was comfortability encouraged

Answer 35

• prior to the experiment they played crafts with the children
• children were monitored for fatigue or boredom
• they were repeatedly told they would not get into trouble
• the female researchers wore professional casual clothes

Question 36

what were the quantitative results for the target absent lineups for cartoon faces

Answer 36

Children- 0.74 rejection rate
Adults- 0.94 rejection rate

Question 37

What were the quantitative results for target present lineups for human faces

Answer 37

Children- 0.23 identification rate
Adults- 0.66 identification rate