Pozzulo et al

• Lineup


  A list of suspects, usually presented as pictures, that eyewitnesses are asked to identify the perpetrator from
• 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 an event occurred that did not actually happen, often due to confabulation to fill in gaps in memory
• Eyewitness testimony


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


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


  Correctly stating that the target is not present in a target-absent lineup
• The cartoon character targets used are Dora the Explorer and Go Diego Go
• 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 modality (IMD) - cartoon faces vs human faces
• Repeated measures


  Participants will be shown both cartoon faces and human faces
• Level of cognitive demand

  Familiarity - cartoon faces are familiar, human faces are unfamiliar
• Participants


  • Children aged 4-7 years
  • Adults aged 17-30 years
• Children participants: 59 in total, 21 females, 38 males, recruited from pre-kindergarten or kindergarten classes in 3 private schools in Eastern Ontario, Canada
• Adult participants: 53 in total, 36 females, 17 males, recruited from an introductory psychology participant pool at an Eastern Ontario University
• Both children and adults were familiar with the target cartoon characters Dora and Go Diego Go
• Procedure for children


  1. Parents/guardians fill out consent form

  2. Parents/guardians fill out demographic and cartoon watching form

  3. 4 female researchers and 1 female facilitator go to schools and invite consented children to participate

  4. Children told study is about TV shows and games, can withdraw at any time

  5. Researchers do crafting activities with children before experiment to create comfort
• Procedure for adults


  1. Participants come to lab

  2. Given short introduction, told study is about memory (slight deception)

  3. Consent form filled out
• Human face targets


  2 Caucasian university students, 1 male and 1 female, age 22
• Human face target videos


  1. Female target brushing hair, male target putting on coat and exiting home

  2. 6 second videos with 2-3 second close-up of face
• Human face target photos were taken in different outfits than the videos to avoid identification based on clothing
• Target present lineup


  Contains the target and 3 foils
• Target absent lineup


  Contains 4 foils
• Foils


  Innocent people selected to be similar in appearance to the targets
• Foil selection


  Pool of 90 female and 90 male faces, foils selected based on similar facial structure, hair length and color to targets
• Targets and foils were cropped to show only face, neck and top of shoulders
• Cartoon face target videos


  1. Dora the Explorer talking, Go Diego Go putting on gloves

  2. 6 second videos with 2-3 second close-up
• be selecting a list of pictures from the pool that they feel match the male Target the most and the female Target the most and then they're going to give each of them ratings and then the four foils or the four human the four male pictures and the four female pictures that have the highest rating in terms of their similarity to the Target will be selected as the foils
• there were two um cartoon targets cartoon characters one male one female uh one was Dora the Explorer and the other was the male was Go Diego Go uh each was presented just like the human videos in a 6sec video clip
• for the Dora video clip it was a clip of Dora the Explorer talking to the audience and the other was a clip of Diego putting on a pair of gloves for safety
• the cartoon Clips also involved the characters just performing everyday mundane tasks um and similar to the human videos there was a two to 3 second closeup of the cartoon characters face as well there were no other cartoon characters in the clip so it was just Dora and it was just Diego in their respective video clips both were in color but the sound was muted
• the pictures that we used were still images of the two cartoon targets and just like the human um lineups the human pictures there were four in total and then the fifth was a silhouette
• for Target present lineups the cartoon Target was present along with three foils and in in um Target absent the cartoon Target was not present and there were four foils then obviously the fifth was a silhouette
• how the cartoon foils were selected


  1. These were selected from a list of cartoon characters that were already available on the internet

  2. They were rated in terms of similarity in appearance and general facial structure, hair length and color

  3. The four with the highest similarity rating were chosen as the foils
• the cartoon faces were also cropped so that it would only show the face beginning from the top of the shoulders all the way up uh to reduce the appearance of any clothing worn