AICE Psych: Pozzulo et al. (Line-up)

Outline the aim(s) of the study.

General: To explore the effect of social vs. cognitive factors on children's performance as eyewitnesses compared to adults.

Specific: To test whether children will be as good as adults at identifying cartoon faces and worse than adults at identifying human faces in target-present line-ups.

• To test whether children will be worse than adults at rejecting cartoon and human faces in a target-absent line-up.

Outline the sample used in the study.

Children:

• Aged 4-7 y/o

• 59 total participants; 21 females, 39 males

• Recruited from: pre-kindergarten/kindergarten classes from private schools in Ontario, Canada

Adults:

• Aged 17-30

• 53 total: 36 females and 17 males

• Recruited from: introductory participant pool from Eastern Ontario, Canada

Not a feature: Used Opportunity Sampling

State the research method(s) and design used.

Laboratory experiment

Mixed design; repeated and independent design

Outline the independent and dependent variable(s).

IV 1: Age

• Operationalized as: Young child or adult

  • This IV used independent measures

IV 2: Nature of target faces

• Operationalized as: Familiar cartoon faces or unfamiliar human faces

IV 3: Type of line-up

• Target present/target absent

DV: Response rates of identification

• # of false positives and # of false negatives

Identify controls used to limit possible extraneous variables.

• Researchers wore casual clothing to reduce social pressures on the children (blouse and dress pants)

• Photo arrays were from the shoulder-up

• Black and white photo arrays

• The order of line-up participants was randomized across each trial.

• Researchers monitored children for fatigue and stress

Outline the materials used during the procedure.

Cartoon Targets:

• One female character (Dora the Explorer)

• One male character (Go Diego Go)

  • Foils: Readily available from cartoon images on the internet

Human Targets:

• One caucasian female

• One caucasian male

  • Both were 22 y/o University Students

Outline the procedure for the children participants.

Parents/guardians had to complete a written consent form and demographic sheet to ensure children were familiar with the cartoons.

Female experimenters visited the private school, making it clear that the children could change their minds at any time and they would not get in trouble.

• Children were tested individually, and a facilitator was responsible for entertaining those who were waiting to be tested

Researchers worked on crafts with the kids to create a level of comfort, monitoring them for fatigue and stress, also telling them to pay attention as they’d be asked questions and shown pictures.

Once comfortable, the video was played. Following the clip, they were asked one free recall question. Following their response, they were asked a non-specific, probing question:

“Do you remember anything else?” was repeated if there was no response.

After recording information, a lineup was presented on a laptop via PowerPoint. Children were asked to identify the cartoon/person by pointing. If the target was absent, they were told to point to a silhouetted box.

This was repeated for 3 videos; at the end, they were thanked and given a small token. (Crayons and a coloring book)

Outline the procedure for the adult participants.

Upon entering the lab, participants were given an introduction and a consent form. They were told to pay attention as they would be asked questiono ana snown piciures.

• After watching ine viaeo hey were provided a sheet asking a free recall question, "What did the cartoon /person look like?" followed by, "Do you remember anything else about the cartoon/person?"

The participant was asked to write down every thing they could remember about what they saw in the video. After, the corresponding line-up was shown on a lapiop via powerpoint.

• Participants were asked to identity the cartoon/ person they saw by indicating their selection on a matching sheet. Participanis were informed that if the person was not here, they shoud correspond it with the sihlouetted photograph.

• The procedure was repeated for another 3 videos and following completion of the videos participants were given a demographic questionarre assesing tneir famiarity of the cartoons shown.

• They were then thanked for their participation.

Outline the results for the target present line-ups.

Children were significantly better at identifying familiar cartoon faces versus human faces.(0.23%)

Adults were significantly better at identifying familiar cartoons versus human faces. (0.66%)

Outline the results for the target absent line-ups.

Children had a significantly higher success rate with target-absent line-ups, including cartoon characters (0.74%), compared to human faces (0.45%).

Adults performed significantly better with the cartoon faces (0.94%) compared to human faces (0.74%).

Outline the conclusion(s) of the study.

Cognitive factors were not responsible for the lower success rates in children when incorrectly, rejecting the foils in target absent lineups.

children are less accurate than adults when faced with unfamiliar human actors and generally are more prone to giving false positive responses

evaluate the study in terms of generalizability

Low:

• Child Participants were from a high socioeconomic background

• All under 30y/o