A
Sample
59 children 53 adults
Sampling method
Not stated in the journal!
Approach of Pozzulo et Al
Cognitive
Whats the Reserch methodoly used in Pozzulo
Lab experiment
Aims of Pozzullo et al
1. To investigate wheter children are less able to recognise human faces than adults.
2. Investigating wheter children make more false positve identifciation than adults when faced with targeet- absent line-ups vs target-present line-up
Demographics of the sample
4-7 year old children from 3 priavte schools in Canada
17-30 year olds from Introductory Psychologcial Participants of Easterns Ontarion University
Data Collection
Questionnaire- pps´s age, gender, time watching catoons and familarity with the target cartoon
Pp´s had to identify the carton/person in video by pointing them out
Whats the reaserch design used in Pozzulo
Mixed:
independent measures
repeated measures
Procedure for children
1. consent from parents signed
2. 3 researchers visited the school inviting children to participate in an experiment of watching a short film and explained that they have the right to withdraw and wouldnt be in trouble for leaving.
3. Researchers played with children before they told them to pay attention to each clip(2 featured Dora & Diego and 2 featured unfamiliar faces, 3 sec each) as they will be asked questions after the video.
4. After each clip experiment asked the children ´What did the cartoon/person look like?’ and point out on pwerpoint presentation.
5. after each condition the child recieved a coloring book as a thank you gift
Ethics Issues
- researchers gained written informed consent from parents of all childrens participants and all adult participants
-decived/mislead, participants were tld that tagrets may not be present
-children monitored for anxiety, stress and fatigue in order to minimize possible harm as children are less likely to excercise their right to withdraw
Procedure for Adults
1. Signed consent
2. they were told to pay attention to the clips (2 featured Dora & Diego and 2 feautred, 3 sec each) as they would be asked filler questions after such as ´What did the cartoon/person look like?´ & ´Do you remember anything else?´
3. After viewing all clips, pp´s were debriefed and thanked
3.
Give the qualitative data
children and adults were significantly better at identifying familiar cartoons characters than human
children performed worse on human faces than adults
How did researchers reduce cognitive factors?
By dressing up casually to reduce pressure and playing with the children before they were asked questions
Give 2 quantitative data
two of these:
Children- higher correction rejection rate when cartoons were used(0.74) compared with human faces(0.45)
Adults performed better with cartoon (0.94) than with human faces(0.70)
Conclusion from the study
Children are likely to make errors in target absent lineups due to social demands to make a selection rather than a faulty memory.
Is this study generalisable
finding might not be generalisable to pp´s from lower socio economics as the children were all from private schools. Adults were also all from uni= higher education
Application of the study
eye witness testimonies can be affected by expectations of other especially with child witnesss
findings ould be used to develope police guidelines for interviewing a child witness- reducing incorrect identification with target absent lineups
Is this study generalisable
Might not be generalisable to participants from lower socio economic as all children were from private schools.
Adult were also all from universities sugessting higher education
Is this study reliable?
Pozzulo has standardise procedures but filler task questions were not the same for everyone which may have affected participants on the line up task which lowers the reliability
How are Individual and Situational explanation explained in Pozzulo
Individual- characteristics such as age or memory may not be as important as situational characteristics such as familiarity
Situational- factors such as social pressure may explain children are more likely to identify a suspect even in a target absence line up