POZZOLO- EVALUATION Flashcards
Strengths- standardised procedures and controls.
The lab environment allowed a high level of controls and standardised procedures. Which reduces the influence of extraneous variables (affect of iv) and inc replicability/reliability.
- standardised vids as they were all 6 seconds long, in colour with no sound. Shows targets face for 2-3 seconds.
- Randomisation, counter balancing.
- All photos were in black and white.
- Target present- 3 foils TA- 4 foils
Why were ppts only shown the targets face for 2-3 seconds long?
In real life situations witnesses would have a few seconds to take a good look at the culprit (mundane realism)
Why were all the photos on black and white?
Colour may affect facial recognition thus minimises extraneous variable of familiarity.
Children are familiar with cartoon so this may aid in recall.
Why was randomisation, and counter balancing used?
Memory can be distorted before and during encoding by information we are exposed before/after encoding thus this ensures their memory is actually reliable and not influenced by order or practice effects.
Order effects
When the presentation of the experimental conditions affects ppts responses.
Practice effect
any change results from task repetition.
Strengths- Quantitative data
- Researchers collected quantitative, numerical data/statistics such as mean. (mean identification and rejection rates)
-To make comparison between conditions to look for differences caused by the IVS. - Increases the objectivity and scientific credibility of the results. Further comparisons and trends can be identified.
Strength- internal validity
Following each video there were filler questions and probing questions which reduces demand characteristics and condiment that the IV was the only variable having the impact. The children and adults were mislead about the aims of the study (memory/TV shows). There were raters to judge the similarity of the foils.
Reduces demand characteristics,
accurate picture of behaviour inc validity.
Ethics (children)
- Reserachers wore smart-casual clothes
- ongoing monitoring of the children fatigue, anxiety and stress to protect them from harm.
-Parental and child friendly consent - Deception
(Practical- pointing simpler than writing)
Weakness- ecological validity
- Not a real line up. (Cartoon targets)
Wouldn’t have the same importance or urgency - The different emotional/social
experience lowers the ecological validity, as the study was looking at social effects which would have realistically been influenced by emotions. Thus Lowers RWA
Weakness- generalisability,representativeness
- The children had a private school backgrounds which limits generalisability to individual with different socio-economic backgrounds
- The adults were recruited from a Psych participant pool which may have caused demand characteristics, or sample bias (certain profile overs presented)
- Focus on 4-7 y/o neglects varying developmental differences in memory and suggestibility across ages.
Weakness- low internal validity
The study compares familiar cartoon
faces with unfamiliar human faces. (This design provides insight into the effect of familiarity on identification) BUT it introduces a bias. Children engage better(attend better to a stimulus- recall) recognise familiar cartoon faces, this could lead to an overestimation of
their identification abilities
(in realistic scenarios the target will be unfamiliar)
Real world application?
- could be used to demonstrate children are not reliable witness, more likely to produce false positive responses. (Avoid using children)
- Methods can be found to reduce social pressure and reliability of eye witness identification (research path)
- Raises effectiveness of court proceedings where children were the only witnesses.
Nature vs nurture
Individual or situational explanations
Social explanations= relatively poor performance of child witnesses in target-absent line ups was due to social demands (pressure). Not due to individual explanations (cognitive abilities)
