Pozzulo et al

What approach is this study?

Cognitive

Why does it fall under that approach?

The Pozzulo study deals with memory which is a key component of cognitive psychology

What are the psychologies being studied?

How info is stored and the processes on how it is recalled//the social effect on children when they are witnesses to a crime//false memories

How do false memories occur?

By creating a memory of an event that never happened OR the wording choice used when being asked to recall info

Background info on the Pozzulo Study?

In 1997, Lindsay and Pozzulo showed that the ways in which questions are asked lead to errors in decision making in kids. Kids are scared to say "I don't know". We know what a police line-up is. Kids are more likely to pick an innocent man in a line up (1998 study done by Pozzulo and Lindsay). Kids are more likely to feel social pressure to give an answer in situations. Kids see adults as authority figures and want to please them. Kids feel pressured to make a choice to avoid punishment.

Aim?

To investigate if cognitive and/or social factors affect correct identification and false positive responses in a line-up//To investigate correct identification and false positive responses in a line-up in relation to how familiar the target/perpatrator is

Hypotheses?

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 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

Independent Variables?

Age (child or adult), type of face (human or cartoon), type of line-up (target absent/present)

DVs?

Correct identification rate if target is present and rejection rate for the target absent line-up

Method?

Laboratory study, mixed-design with both independent and repeated measures (ind, bc of the naturally occuring variable (age) and rep bc you must see both sides of the correct identification rate and rejection rate)

Apparatus?

1. Demographic and cartoon watching form // 2. Human face targets (one female and one male caucasion 22 y/o // 3. Human face foils (must have similar facial structure, hair length, and hair color) // 4. Cartoon targets (Dora and Diego) // 5. Cartoon foils (cartoons chosen from the internet) // 6. The line-up // 7. A TV to watch the video clip // 8. Computer with the powerpoint on it // 9. The questionnaire given to the adults

Participant demographics?

Children: 59 kids aged 4-7 (21f, 38m) recruited from three private schools in Eastern Ontario, Canada (can assume it's an opportunity sample) // Adults: 53 adults aged 17-30 (36f, 17m) recruited from an introductory psychology class in an Eastern Ontario university (volunteer sample) // Three female experimenters: wearing business casual to avoid looking like an authority figure to the kids (the cop look)

Controls?

1. All videos were the same length (6 secs) // 2. All line-ups are shown for the same amount of time // 3. All participants were given the same instructions (with the exception of the changes for adults and kids) // 4. Counterbalanced for the order effect by randomizing the order of the videos shown

Procedures?

Kids: make sure you have the demographic and cartoon watching form, each school is visited by 3 female experiments (and facilitater), kids are introduced to the experiemnter and told they're researching cartoon and video games, all kids were told they could stop at any time with no punishment, kids are told to watch the video and pay attention b/c they would be asked questions, kids are monitored for sign of stress, boredom, fatigue, etc, after videos are played they're asked questions to verbally answer, after the last video is shown, they're given a gift (crayons and coloring book) // Adults: All the same procedure except they're told the study is on memory, they are able to write down their answers instead of verbally saying it, and for their debrief, they're told the truth and no gift

Data?

quantitative data from the responses // qualitative data from the answers after each video clip

Findings?

Target present: children correctly identified cartoon 99% of the time and human faces 23% of the time; adults correctly identified cartoon faces 95% of the time and human faces 66% of the time; adults are better than kids at identifying human faces; both kids and adults are good at identifying cartoons // Target absent: children had 74% correct rejection rate for cartoons and 45% for humans; adults had a 94% correct rejection rate for cartoon and 70% for humans

Conclusions?

Kids could correctly identify the cartoons almost 100% of the time, so they have attention and memory skills // Kids poor performance on the correct rejection shows social pressure on cognitive skills // Since children scored well with cartoon characters, memory cannot be an issue with them (social factors are)

Ethics

Informed consent and confidentiality were maintained // Deception was used // Protection from harm: the kids COULD have been stressed

Strengths?

Has qualitative and quantitative data, used both independent and repeated measures (eliminates participant variables), standardized, controlled setting

Weaknesses?

Low mundane realism b/c real police line-ups are not on powerpoints, narrow age range (lowers generalization), low ecological validity b/c done in a lab

Issues and Debates?

Animals: N/A // Children: received loco parentis and short tasks so kids weren't bored // Indv vs Situ: indv- (age) kids care if they please you while adults dont; situ- kids are put in a situation that could create social pressure // Nature vs Nurture: N/A // Application: must have a target present line-up for a kid, ask the kid quetsions, applicable on identifying perpatrators but also helps defense as it shows kids aren't accurate in identifying humans