3.3 Pozzulo et al (line ups)

Question 1

Psychology being investigated

Answer 1

memories can be distorted
post-event information can produce false memories
eyewitness testimony
memories are re-constructive and people fill in the gaps in their memories in a process called confabulation
police lineups (false positive responses)

Question 2

false memory

Answer 2

a piece of stored information an individual believes to be an accurate memory but which is the consequence of later additional and untrue information, such as in a question about an event seen by an eyewitness

Question 3

eyewitness testimony

Answer 3

evidence provided by an individual who has seen (or heard ) a crime being committed. This information is used by the legal system

Question 4

line-up

Answer 4

a source of evidence used by the legal system. A witness is shown a line of people or an array of photographs of faces and is asked to attempt to identify the perpetrator of the crime (may not be present)

Question 5

false positive response

Answer 5

giving an affirmative (positive) but incorrect answer to a question. For example, mistakenly picking out a person in a line-up when the real culprit is not there

Question 6

what are some social effects on child witnesses (background)

Answer 6

if asked to select which of the people in the lineup is the culprit they may think they NEED to choose one of the people

view the adult as an authority figure so more likely to comply with their request

feel more pressured to make a choice and want to comply with their request and fear getting into trouble

Question 7

Aim

Answer 7

explore the effect of social versus cognitive factors on children’s performance as eyewitnesses
test the 4 predictions:
children will be as good as adults at identifying cartoon faces in a target-present line-up

children will be worse than adults at identifying human faces in a target-present line-up

children will be worse than adults at rejecting cartoon faces in a target-absent line-up

children will be worse than adults at rejecting human faces in a target-absent line-up

Question 8

Research method and design
IV and DV

Answer 8

laboratory experiment
IV:
Age- children or adults
independent measures design

Line-up type- target-present or target-absent
repeated measures design

Level of cognitive demand- cartoon(familiar, low cognitive demand so differences due to social demand) versus human (unfamiliar therefore higher cognitive demand)
repeated measures design

DV:
whether the participant identified the correct face if present or the empty silhouette if not

Question 9

Sample

Answer 9

Children:
59 children, 21 female and 38 male
4-7 years old mean age 4.98
kindergarten classes in three private schools in Eastern Ontario, Canada

Adults:
53 adults, 36 females and 17 males
17-30 years mean age 20.54
Introductory psychology participant pool at Eastern Ontario university

Question 10

Human face target details ( about video clips and photos)

Answer 10

22 year old Caucasian students
videos- 6-second clip, female brushing her hair, male putting on a coat. Video in colour with no sound. It showed 2 to 3 seconds of the individual face

Photoarrays- students were photographed wearing different clothes, each target 4 foils were chosen by three raters based on facial features, hair length and colour. Photographs cropped to the face, neck and top of shoulders

Question 11

Cartoon face target details ( about video clips and photos)

Answer 11

Dora and Diego
videos- 2 6-second clips of dora the explorer talking to the audience and go diego do putting on a pair of gloves for safety. Video in colour with no sound or other characters. Showed 2 to 3 seconds of target character’s face

Photoarrays- still images of the two targets along with four foils which were selected by three raters who judged the similarity (facial features, hair length and colour). Photographs cropped to the face

Question 12

filler question asked to participants

Answer 12

what did the cartoon character/person look like?
do you remember anything else?
do you remember anything from the video? (if the children did not respond to the first question)
the adults noted down their own responses
, and the researchers noted down for the children

Question 13

consent forms completed by the parents of the children

Answer 13

completed informed consent forms and demographic and cartoon-watching forms
eight-item questionnaire
parents asked to estimate how long their children spent watching Dora the explorer and go, diego go
also asked about the child’s gender, age, ethnicity, primary language

Question 14

results mean identification rate for child and adult participants for each IV

Answer 14

target present cartoon identification:
child- 0.99
adult- 0.95
target present human identification:
child- 0.23
adult- 0.66
target absent cartoon rejection:
child- 0.74
adult- 0.94
target absent human rejection:
child- 0.45
adult- 0.7

Question 15

methodological strengths

Answer 15

standardised environment for both children and adults and use of standardised materials (all videos in colour, no sound, six seconds, black and white photo array)- reliability
quantitative data produced
validity- use of repeated measures design so no effect of participant variables

Question 16

methodological weakness

Answer 16

low ecological validity- there are other sensory details sound smell when faced with a real culprit, line up was not real, emotional experience did not play role pg.117

Question 17

ethical issues

Answer 17

consent was given by the parents of the children as well as the children themselves in a child-friendly way
children had the right to withdraw
monitored children for signs of fatigue, anxiety and stress to protect them from harm
researchers participated with the children in crafts before the experiment to reduce any stress, wore informal clothes (to not look like an authority figure)

Question 18

real life applications

Answer 18

help the police to create guidelines when interviewing children in order to combat the social factors that reduce the accuracy of witness identification by children