AICE Pozzulo et al

AICE POZZULO ET AL VOCABULARY

What was the Aim of Pozzulo et al

-To explore the role of social and cognitive factors in children’s identification of target faces in line-ups

What was the Sample of Pozzulo et al?

-27F and 38M children aged 4-7 (mean: 4.98) selected from 3 private schools in Eastern Ontario Canada

-36F and 17M aged 17-30 (mean=20.54) selected from the Introductory Psychology Participant pool of an Eastern Ontario University

What was the IVs of Pozzulo et al?

-Age (young children or adults)

-Nature of target faces (familiar cartoon characters or unfamiliar human faces)

-Type of line-up (target-present or target-absent)

What was done before the Procedure started in Pozzulo et al?

BEFORE: Parents of the child participants completed informed consent forms and the Demographic and Cartoon Watching form (8Q)

• Asked about their child’s age, gender, primary language, ethnicity, and how long their child watches cartoons each week

4 female researchers were introduced as people from the university doing research on TV shows and computer games.

Adults were told that the study was about memory and completed their own paperwork

Childrens were tested individually at their school ← participated in some craft activities with the researchers to get to know each other

First Video was shown once the child seemed happy and ready

What was the Procedure of Pozzulo et al?

After each video clip, they were asked ‘what did the cartoon/person look like?’ and ‘Do you remember anything else?’

-Researchers spent 2 minutes on this filler task and wrote the children’s answers down

• Procedures were identical to adults, but wrote down their own answers

They were asked to “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 this box”.

Line-ups were shown using presentation software on a laptop

Adults completed the same procedures but recorded their answers on a sheet rather than pointing to the screen

Describe the Video-Clips of Pozzulo et al

4 VIDEO CLIPS:

Cartoons - Dora and Diego

Dora: Speaking to the audience, Diego: Putting on safety gloves

Adults: Male and Female Actor (22yr; Caucasian)

Male: Putting on a coat, Female: Brushing her hair

ALL CLIPS: One character per clip, in color, no sound, 6 seconds long and each featured a 2-3 second close-up of the person’s face

Describe the procedures of the photo-array line-ups in Pozzulo et al

3 photographs were foils (people who looked similar) ← facial structure, hair length, and color

Target Present Line-Ups: Target person/cartoon character were dressed differently from the video clip

Target Absent: Target was swapped for another foil

ALL 4 photo array line-up were tightly cropped, in black and white headshots

ALL included a silhouette as a visual reminder that the genuine target may not be present

ALL images were viewed at the same time together

How was the foils selected in Pozzulo et al?

Human foils were selected from a set of 90M and 90F by a panel of 3 researchers

Cartoons were selectd online by similarity to target

• Chose 10 different cartoons as potential foils for each target (chose top 4 at the end)

What was the Result of Pozzulo et al?

Childrens were significantly better at identifying familiar cartoon characters in target-present line-ups than unfamiliar human faces (99% to 33%)

ADULTs 95% to 66%

Children had a higher rate of false positives compared to adults + false negative (smaller)

Children probably knew that the character was not in the line-up but felt that the social situation required them to pick someone out, despite being told this was not the case

What were the Strengths of Pozzulo et al?

Standardized Procedure and Instructions (easily replicated): check whether the high level of false positive response in target absent line-ups is reliable

-All participants were told to watch carefully as there would be questions afterwards and pictures to look at, completed a 2-minute filler task where they answered the researcher’s open questions about what they remembered, given the same instructions about identifying the target, including the fact that the person may or may not be in the line up

Use of Repeated Measures (increased internal validity):

-Participants took part in both types of line-ups with both types of target. Performance in target-present helped to provide a baseline with which performance in target present could be compared

• If the researchers had used an independent measures design:

  -Results could’ve been because of participant variables. One group might have had slightly or worse facial recognition/working memory skills than the other group

High Degree of Control (Ensured that the difference in performance in the line-up task was likely caused by the type of target and line-up):

Materials were carefully created. Ensured that everything remained the same except for the character type and gender.

• Videos were in color, no audio, included 2-3 second close up of the target, and were overall the same length (6 seconds).

Minimized Subjectivity: Choice of foils for the photo-arrays were judged by 3 researchers who chose from 10 different cartoons as potential foils for each target (chose top 4). Foils were rated based off similarity to target

What were the Weaknesses of Pozzulo et al?

Researchers did not ask everyone the same questions during the 2-minute filler task.

-Some were asked 2 questions while others 3 questions depending on how much information they had already provided

Participants may have gone into the line-up task with different confidence levels based on how they had answered the previous questions + might’ve affected/altered how they responded in the line-up task

Generalizability: May not be generalizable to participants from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

-Childrens were from private schools, suggesting they were from relatively wealthy families

-Adults were drawn from a university participant pool, suggesting that the majority were students

Childrens and adults from lower socioeconomic background may be even more vulnerable to social factors when being interviewed or giving evidence + likely to become victims of crimes and witnesses. ← Must diversify their samples to improve experiences within the justice systems for all, regardless of social background

Laboratory Experiment: Seeing a culprit in a real-life situation witness would have also been exposed to other sensory information (smell)

What was the Conclusion of Pozzulo et al?

Cognitive factors were not responsible for the lower rate in correctly rejecting the foils in the target absent line-ups instead it was social factors that caused these errors