Pozzulo et al 2011

• Eyewitness Testimony


  Individuals or groups recalling information about a criminal incident they observed, including details about people involved, incident occurrences, and crime scene specifics
• Eyewitness Testimony


  • Interview methods: Open and closed questions, questionnaires
  • Legal significance: Eyewitness information is often used in courts to aid in the prosecution process
  • Psychological debate: Validity and reliability
• False Positive Responses


  Occur when an eyewitness selects something (e.g., a person in a line-up) that is not accurate, but the person believes it is
• The study delves into two key aspects of psychology – eyewitness identification and the influence of social versus cognitive factors on decision-making, especially in young children
• Eyewitness Identification


  • It is a critical area in forensic psychology, particularly regarding the reliability and accuracy of eyewitness testimony in legal contexts
  • Eyewitness identification typically involves recognizing a suspect from a lineup
  • This process can be complex, as it depends on various factors like memory, perception, and psychological stress
• Cognitive Factors


  The mental processes involved in memory and recognition, such as a person's ability to accurately recall and recognize faces or details from a memory of the event
• Social Factors


  The influence of social context and pressures on decision-making, such as a child feeling compelled to choose even when uncertain due to perceived expectations from authority figures or a desire to be helpful
• Pozzulo's study is grounded in developmental psychology and cognitive psychology, addressing the developmental aspects of memory and cognition in children and exploring how these factors influence their ability to accurately recall and identify individuals in lineups
• The study also delves into the specifics of eyewitness identification procedures, such as the differences in children's responses to target-present (where the perpetrator is in the lineup) versus target-absent (where the perpetrator is not present) lineups
• The Pulo et al. study is easier and shorter compared to the Lany study
• The Pulo et al. study compares adult and child participants, which is not the case in the other 11 studies in the syllabus
• Lineup


  A list of suspects, usually presented as pictures, from which eyewitnesses try to identify a perpetrator
• Adults are more likely to give correct identifications compared to children in lineups
• False positive response


  An affirmative or positive answer that is incorrect
• Social factors


  Factors related to social pressure and expectations that can influence children's responses in lineups
• Cognitive factors


  Factors related to memory and recall that influence adults' responses in lineups
• Children may feel social pressure to pick someone from a lineup even if they are unsure, leading to false positive responses
• False memory


  Believing in an event that did not actually occur, often due to memory distortion and confabulation
• Eyewitness testimony


  Evidence provided by an individual who has witnessed a crime
• Identifying


  Correctly selecting the target from a target-present lineup
• Rejecting


  Correctly indicating that the target is not present in a target-absent lineup
• The cartoon target faces used are Dora the Explorer and Go Diego Go, which are familiar to both children and adults
• The human target faces are unfamiliar to participants, requiring higher cognitive demand to correctly identify
• Silhouette


  A black blank black image presented in the lineup if the participant believes that none of the suspects are the target
• Correct rejection


  Participant's response indicating that none of the suspects in the lineup are the target
• Dependent variable (DV)


  The number of correct identifications when presented with a Target present lineup or the number of correct rejections during a Target absent lineup
• Independent variable (IV)


  Image type (cartoon faces vs human faces)
• Repeated measures


  Participants will be shown both cartoon faces and human faces
• Cognitive demand


  Familiarity (cartoon faces are familiar, human faces are unfamiliar)
• Target present lineup


  Lineup containing the target and three foils
• Target absent lineup


  Lineup containing four foils
• Foils


  Innocent people included in the lineup, selected to be similar in appearance to the target
• Child participants


  • 59 children aged 4-7 years, 21 females, 38 males, recruited from pre-kindergarten/kindergarten classes in 3 private schools in Eastern Ontario, Canada
• Adult participants


  • 53 adults aged 17-30, 36 females, 17 males, recruited from an introductory psychology participant pool at an Eastern Ontario university
• Both child and adult participants were familiar with the target cartoon characters Dora and Go Diego Go
• Target cartoon characters


  • Dora
  • Go Diego Go
• Procedure for child participants

  1. Parents/guardians provide consent and fill out demographic/cartoon watching questionnaire

  2. Researchers introduce themselves and the study as being about TV shows and games

  3. Researchers engage children in crafting activities to build comfort

  4. Children monitored for fatigue, anxiety, stress
• Procedure for adult participants

  Participants come to lab, given short introduction, provided consent form, told study is about memory (slight deception)
• Human targets are two 22-year-old Caucasian university students, one male and one female, performing everyday tasks in video clips
• Human target videos include 2-3 second close-ups of the targets' faces