Research Method:
Participants observed video clips in a controlled setting before trying to identify the
target person from the video in different types of line-ups
The 3 IVS:
1. age: young children or adults
2. nature of target faces: familiar cartoon characters or unfamiliar human faces
3. type of line-up: target-present or target-absent.
4 videos (target faces):
1. Male cartoon (Diego)
2. Female cartoon (Dora the explorer)
3. Male actor
4. Female actress
(They were randomized for each participant to avoid order effect)
Sample:
Children:
• aged 4-7 (21 female & 38 male)
• Mean age = 4.98 years (~5)
• They were selected from three private schools in Eastern Ontario, Canada.
Adults:
• aged 17-30 (36 female & 17 male)
• Mean age = 20.54 years
• They were selected from the "introductory Psychology Participant Pool" of an Eastern Ontario
university
(type of sample not mentioned)
(Draft) Procedure:
Presting the video create rouphoto-array line-ups
The oscarchers created tour video dips, 2 staring the familar carton characters Dora and , Dora was
speaking to the audience in one video and Diego was puting on safety sloves in
the other.
, The other two clips separately included a male and a female main character but this time the actors
were humans, matched for age and ethnicity (both were 22 years old and
Caucasian).
, The woman was brushing her hair and the man was putting on his coat
Al dips were in colour, with no sound, 6 seconds long and each featured a 2-to-3 second lose up of the
person's face. There was only ever one character per clip. (controls) o Bach video had an accompanying
photo-array line-up of four tightly cropped, black-and-white headshots.
. in the target-present line-ups, one of the photographs was the target person/cartoon character - but
dressed differently from the video clip
. The other three photographs were foils, meaning people who looked similar (6.g, similar facial
structure, hair length and colour), but were not the target.
• In the target-absent condition, the target was swapped for another foil in the same position.
• All line-ups included a silhouette as a visual reminder that the genuine target may not be present. All
images were viewed together, at the
same time
How were foils selected:
• Human foils were selected from 90 males & 90 female faces by 3 researchers
• Cartoon foils were selected online due to their similarity to the target. (As Dora & Diego wear the
same bright-colored clothes all the time, the images for the line-up were cropped b&w pics)
Before the testing phase:
Parents of the child participants...:
1• completed informed consent forms & "the Demographic & Cartoon Watching Form" (an eight-item
questionnaire)
2• were asked to estimate how long their child watched cartoons each week & how long they spent
watching Dora the Explorer and Go, Diego, Go!
3• were asked their childs' age, gender, primary language, ethnicity & whether they had any siblings
• Children were tested individually at their schools
• The 4 female researchers were introduced as people from the university doing research on television
shows and computer games
• Before starting the experiment, the children & the researchers participated in some craft activities
together to get to know each other.
• The adult participants completed their own paperwork & were told the study was about memory.
Watching the videos:
The child participants were told they would be watching some videos and to pay attention as they would
be asked some qs afterwards.
• The first video was shown once the child seemed happy and ready
• After each clip, they were asked:
- "What did the cartoon character/person look like? Do you remember anything else?"
...If they didn't answer, they were asked:
- "Do you remember anything from the video?"
• The researcher spent 2 minutes on this filler task and wrote the children's answers down, although
they wouldn't be analysed.
• The procedure was identical for the adults, except they wrote down their own answers.
The photo-array line-ups:
• Participants were given the following standardized instructions:
"Please look at the photos. The person/cartoon from the video mav or may not be here. If you see the
person/cartoon, please point to the photo. If you do not see the person/cartoon, please point to this
box."
• The line-ups were shown using a presentation software on a laptop. The adults completed
the same procedure, but they recorded their answers on a sheet rather than pointing to the screen.
After testing was complete:
• The child participants...: were thanked & given gifts of crayons and a colouring book.
• The adult participants...: completed Demographic & Cartoon Watching Form then > debriefed and
thanked.
Results: Target-present line-ups:
• As expected, the children were significantly better at identifying familiar cartoon characters in targetpresent line-ups than unfamiliar human faces.
-> Their success rate was 0.99 compared with just 0.23 for unfamiliar human faces.
• The adults were also significantly better when faced with target-present cartoon line-ups
(0.95) than unfamiliar faces, but their success rate was much higher than the children's (0.66).
• There was no significant difference in the success rate of adults and children in identifying
the cartoon characters.
Results: Target-absent line-ups:
• As predicted the children had a significantly higher success rate with target-absent line-ups including
cartoon characters (0.74) compared with human faces (0.45).
• The adults also performed sm better with the cartoon characters (0.94) compared with the human
faces (0.70) & their performance was also sm better than the children for both cartoon & human faces.
Conclusions:
• Children were able to identify the cartoon characters with almost 100% accuracy in target-presence
line-ups
• Cognitive factors (e.g. faulty memory) were not responsible for the lower success rate in correctly
rejecting the foils in the target-absent line-ups.
• They were clearly able to recognise the characters and, therefore, logically should have been able to
recognise that none of the foils was Dora or Diego: yet some of the children still made errors.
• Pozzulo et al. conclude that these errors must be caused by social factors that is incorrectly believing
that the researcher would prefer them to make a positive identification, regardless of whether they felt
it was right or wrong.
• It was also concluded that children are less accurate than adults when faced with unfamiliar human
actors and generally more prone to giving false positive responses (incorrect identification).
Mastered (2)
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Line - ups & identification:
• Line-ups are used to identify suspects
• They will be asked whether the culprit is present in a line-up made up of a suspect and a small no. of
'foils'.
• The foils are usually people who look physically like the suspect.
• Witnesses may view the individuals simultaneously (all at the same time) or sequentially
(one after the other)
Aim:
-> to explore the role of social & cognitive factors in children's identification of target faces in line-ups.
Specifically, they aimed to investigate whether children:
• are less able to recognise human faces than adults
• make more false positive IDs than adults (when faced w target-absent line-ups vs target-present lineups// & human faces and cartoon characters)