Mahalaxmi Kumaran 1 AS Level Psychology 9990

Assumptions of the biological

approach:
1. Behaviour, cognition, and emotion can be explained by the working of the brain and the effects of
hormones, genetics and evolution.
2. Similarities and differences between individuals can be understood in terms of biological factors
and their interactions with other factors.

Core study 1: Dement and Kleitman

(1957) (Dreaming and sleep)
Biological approach - AS Level Psychology 9990
PSYCHOLOGY BEING INVESTIGATED:
1. Relationship between stages of sleep and dreaming.
2. Detecting dreams using EEG and EOG.

[De nitions from textbook:

- Sleep: a state of reduced conscious awareness and reduced movement, which occurs on a daily
cycle.
- Circadian rhythm: a cycle that repeats daily, with the patter of sleeping and waking for an
individual.
- Ultradian rhythm: a cycle that repeats more often than the circadian rhythm.
- Electroencephalograph (EEG): a machine used to detect and record electrical activity in the
nerve and muscle cells when many are active at the same tie.
- Dream: a vivid, visual sequence of imagery that occurs at regular intervals during sleep and is
associated with rapid eye movements.
- Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep: a stage of sleep in which our eyes move rapidly under the
lids, which is associated with vivid, visual dreams.
- Non-rapid eye movement (nREM) sleep: the stages of sleep (1-4) in which eyes are still; called
quiescent sleep and is not associated with dreams.
- Eye-movement patters: the pattern that most people tend to follow then looking at objects. ]

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY:

- In a study by Kleitman and Aserinsky, REM was a signi cant marker for dreaming that needed to be
studied in detail.
- The eye movements and characteristics of dreaming needed to be studied.

AIMS:
1. To nd relationships between the REM stages of sleep and dreaming.
2. To see if there is a positive correlation between subjective estimates of dream curated and the
length of the REM period before waking.
3. To see if the eye-movement patterns are related to dream content.

[Characteristics of REM and nREM:]

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Mahalaxmi Kumaran 2 AS Level Psychology 9990
nREM REM

- Slow activity of neurones in the brain - Faster activity of neurones in the brain.
- A stage of deep sleep - A stage of shallow sleep
- No dreaming occurs - Dreaming occurs
- Low amplitude sleep with sleep spindles occurring - Rapid eye movements occur
intermittently
- Divided into four sub stages - High amplitude sleep

EXPERIMENT TYPE: LABORATORY (QUASI AS CORRELATIONS DATA WAS COLLECTED)

SAMPLE AND DEMOGRAPHICS:
9 in total.
7 Males.
2 Females.
All adults.

EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: REPEATED MEASURES DESIGN

IV:
Aim 1: nREM or REM.
Aim 2: Duration of REM dream - 5 and 15.
Aim 3: Eye-movement direction: vertical, horizontal, vertical-horizontal, little or none.
DV:
Aim 1: Recall of dream content.
Aim 2: Accurate recall of duration of dreaming.
Aim 3: Dream content.

PROCEDURE:
1. Participants arrived at the lab a little before their bedtimes.
2. 2 or more electrodes were attached near the eyes and another 2-3 were attached to the scalp of
the participants.
3. After the electrodes were attached, they were asked to sleep.
4. The researchers were in the adjoining room with EOG and EEG machines.
5. Participants were awakened at different times with a bell.
6. They were asked if they had a dream or not; if yes they were asked to report their dreams into a
recording device.
7. They were asked to choose between 5 or 15 minutes estimating their dream during which would
be correlated with their REM duration.
8. They were asked to go to sleep and after 1 minute of their eyes showing a particular directional
movement, they were again awaken and asked about the dream content which would be compared
with the particular direction of their eye movement during sleep.

CONTROLS & STANDARDISATION:

- Participants were instructed to avoid alcohol and caffeine.
- There was no contact between participants and experimenter when they reported their dreams.
- Room for sleeping was kept dark and quiet.
- Electrodes attached were neatly combined into one single cord.
- Only coherent dreams were analysed.
Mahalaxmi Kumaran 3 AS Level Psychology 9990
- 5 experimenters and a few naive participants were asked to observe eye movements closely when
participants were awake.
- Participants were not informed when they were awakened or about their eye movements.
- All participants were awoken by a door bell.
- All participants were asked to report on if they had a dream or not rst, then about the content and
lastly was asked if the duration was 5 or 15 mins.

RESULTS:
AIM 1:
- 152 dreams recalled in REM.
- 11 dreams recalled in nREM.
- 1489 instances of no recall in nREM.
AIM 2:
- Out of 51 awakenings after 5 minutes of REM: 45 correct (88%).
- Out of 60 awakenings after 15 minutes of REM: 47 correct (78%).
AIM 3: EYE MOVEMENT PATTERNS WERE FOUND TO BE RELATED TO DREAM CONTENT.
- Vertical eye movements: participant standing at the bottom of a tall cliff, operate a hoist, looking up
at the climbers; climbing up a series of ladders; shooting a basketball.
- Horizontal eye movements: dreamer watching two people throw tomatoes at each other.
- 10 dreams with no eye movement or little: watching a distance object.
- 21 - mixed eye movements: looking at close objects.

CONCLUSION:
- Dreaming is experienced in REM but not nREM sleep.
- Participants can judge the length of their dream duration.
- REM patterns relate to dream content.
- Dreaming is more likely to occur at the end of the night, when REM stages are longer.
- The occasional nREM recall of dreams are dreams being remembered from the last REM phase.
- Eye movements and brain waves using EEG provides objective evidence supporting the idea that
dreams progress in real time.
- Eye movements during sleep relate to the content of the dream and the direction of the
participant’s gaze in the dream.

STRENGTHS & WEAKNESSES:

- Uncontrolled variables were controlled by using laboratory experiment method.
- Standardisation of door bell sound removed potential individual differences.
- The details of EEG readings and eye movements were not told to the participants, removing
potential demand characteristics.
- EEGs and EOG readings were used to analyse for further conclusions: objective quantitative data;
increasing reliability.
- The results of the self report may have been subjective but the use of an EEG made the results
objective.
- The validity of the study was raised by the clear operationalisation of the de nition of “Dream”.
- The study was a laboratory experiment and therefore was low in ecological validity.
- Ecological validity was also reduced by the set up of the experiment (the EEG chords).
- The sample size of the study was small, making it low in generalisability. Although, the use of both
genders increased the generalisability.
- Deception was raised as an ethical issue as participant WD was misled about the stages of sleep
that he was woken up in.

ISSUES, DEBATES AND APPROACHES:

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 Mahalaxmi Kumaran 4 AS Level Psychology 9990
- EEG has applications in everyday life: psychologists can use it to assess people with dream and
sleep disorders.
- Individual vs situational explanation:
- Individual: Neuronal activity and eye movements are part of individual psychology and
subjective differences occurs in duration of dreams, time of dreaming and frequency of sleep
stages.
- Situational: laboratory conditions could have affected sleep patterns and dream activity.
- Nature vs nurture:
- Nature: sleep patterns and dreaming patterns are found in all humans, and are inherited.
- Nurture: differences in dream content, duration and sleep activity are affected by nurture.

Core study 2: Hassett et. al. (2008)

(Monkeys and toys)
Biological approach - AS Level Psychology 9990
PSYCHOLOGY BEING INVESTIGATED:
- Why boys and girls prefer different types of toys.
- Boys are also seen engaging in active, aggressive play while girls are seen engaging in nurturing,
passive and caring play with toys.
- Some say socialisation is the reason, but there are biological arguments for it.
- This study looks at a speci c species of animals: rhesus monkeys, which have no in uence from
human society.
- Preferences in toys are seen in rhesus monkeys as well supporting the biological argument: there is
an innate preference for toys in boys and girls.

[De nitions from textbook:

- socialisation: the process of learning to behave in socially accepting ways.
- Gender stereotype: a bias exhibited in society, which may be held by people and represented.
- Play: a behaviour typical of childhood, that appears to be done for fun rather than any useful
purpose.
- Objects designed for this purpose are toys. ]

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY:

- Androgen hormone is passed on to babies in the mother’s womb which determines boy and girl
behaviour.
- Girls with the condition congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) are exposed to high levels of
androgen, preferring more boy-typical toys.
- Suggesting that toy preferences are in uenced by hormones, not just socialisation.
- The study used rhesus monkeys to eliminate the human socialisation factor and test whether toy
preferences are natural and innate, rather than because of nurture.

AIMS:
- To investigate whether sex differences in toy preferences in humans are also present in rhesus
monkeys.
- To determine whether these sex differences are due to socialisation or due to biological factors.
- To explore the relationships between toy preferences and activity preferences in rhesus monkeys.
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Mahalaxmi Kumaran 5 AS Level Psychology 9990
RESEARCH METHOD: NON-PARTICIPANT, COVERT, STRUCTURED, FIELD CORRELATION
OBSERVATION.
EXPERIMENT DESIGN: INDEPENDENT MEASURES

SAMPLE DETAILS:
- 82 rhesus monkeys: 61 female, 21 male.
- Final sample’s data used: 34 rhesus monkeys: 23 females, 11 males.
- Opportunity sampling was used.
- 14 monkeys were excluded from the group as they were exposed to varying hormonal treatments
prenatally.
- 39 baby monkeys (3 months and younger) were excluded as it was dif cult to determine their sex.
- A small number of monkeys were tested from the Yerkes National Primate Research Centre in
Atlanta, Georgia.

CONTROLS & STANDARDISATION:

- Counterbalancing placement of the toys.
- Matching toy categories to stereotypical gender assignments:
- Wheeled - masculine
- Plush - feminine.
- Behavioural measures checklist: frequency of occurrence, duration of interaction etc.
- Nonparametric tests when necessary.
- Controlled social rank and age.

PROCEDURE:
- 7 times of 25 minute trials were completed in the outdoors enclosure each with a different pair of
toys.
- Before each observation, observers place the pair of toys (1 plush, 1 wheeled), during the absence of
the monkeys.
- They were placed 10 meters from each other and counterbalancing placement was used; (P, W, P, W).
- Counterbalancing was used to avoid area biases.
- Toys were varied by shape, size and colour.
- They were selected on what you could do wit the toy.
- 6 wheeled toys, 7 plush toys.
- All of this was observed by 2 cameras.
- One was placed facing the wheeled toy, another one placed facing the plush toy.
- Video camera was placed focusing on the toys and two observers were watching the camera for
action with a behavioural checklist to categorise the monkeys’ behaviour.

DATA COLLECTED:
- Age
- Social rank
- Sex of the monkey
- Start and end time of its interaction with the toy
- Behavioural checklist:
- Extended touching
- Holding the toy
- Sitting on the toy
- Carrying the toy
- Dragging the toy

RESULTS:
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Mahalaxmi Kumaran 6 AS Level Psychology 9990
- Most monkeys did not interact.
- Very few monkeys interacted frequently and for a long time.
- Data of 17 monkeys who showed less than 5 behaviours were excluded.
- Male monkeys played with wheeled toys (4.76) for a longer time than female monkeys (1.27).
- Female monkeys played with plush toys (1.49) for a longer time than male monkeys (0.53).
- There was a positive correlation with social hierarchy and the frequency of their interactions with
toys.
- A higher ranking female monkey had a toy preference for plush toys than a lower ranking female
monkey.

Toy type Gender Mean frequency Mean duration (mins) Preference (%)

Male 2.06 0.53 9%

Plush toys
Female 7.97 1.49 30%

Male 9.77 4.76 73%

Wheeled
toys Female 6.96 1.27 39%
- 18% males showed no preference.
- 30% females showed no preference.

COMPARISON STUDY WITH BERENBAUM AND HINES, 1992:

- Hasset et. Al. compared the data for the frequencies of interactions by the monkeys with different
toys to the data for the durations of similar behaviours in children.
- Both rhesus monkeys and human children showed gender differences.
- In human children and rhesus monkeys, the preference was more marked for males then females.

CONCLUSION:
- Sex-typed preference for toys in humans may be due to biological differences.
- Because, even without differences in socialisation, monkeys showed preferences similar to human
infants.
- Toy preferences re ect behavioural and cognitive biases which have been in uenced by hormones.

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS:
- Harm was minimised by using a non-invasive procedure.
- Researchers didn’t replace the use of animals, but used a relatively small sample.
- Rhesus monkeys are a well-studied species, capable of experiencing pain and suffering.
- Very social animals, so researchers allowed them to comfortably interact.
- Smallest number of animals possible were used.
- Monkeys were not subject to pain and distress; were not deprived of water or food; were allowed to
move freely within enclosures and interact.
- Monkeys were used in groups of 3-4; spacious and well-equipped with toys and enrichment
materials.
- Housed with their natal group in 25x25 meter outdoor compound and temperature controlled
indoor quarters.
- Water was available 24x7; fed monkey chow twice daily; supplemented once a day with fruits
and vegetables.
- No aversive stimuli used; positive reinforcers were used to motivate monkeys.

STRENGTHS & WEAKNESSES:

- Use of animals eliminated confounding variables like the effect of socialisation.
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Mahalaxmi Kumaran 7 AS Level Psychology 9990
- Age and social rankings were also eliminated.
- Eliminating these confounding variables increases reliability and validity.
- Highly standardised observation process with clear operationalised de nitions -> increasing
reliability and validity.
- Low generalisability as the same theory cannot be applied to all humans because an in depth
biological invasive investigation has not been conducted; its only a correlation observation and not
a causal relationship.
- Representation is low, and data from another study has been taken, reducing reliability.

ISSUES, DEBATES AND APPROACHES:

- Application of psychology to everyday life:
- Gender differences in children are inevitable.
- Help to stress the need for gender neutral socialisation to enable all individuals to access all
possible organisations.
- Gender-typed socialisation threatens to widen the divide between males and females early in
childhood.
- Individual vs situational explanation:
- Clear role of biology in individual preferences according to gender.
- Biology interacts with situational effects of exposure to gender stereotyping within society.
- Nature vs nurture:
- The study demonstrated that sex differences in human play of boys and girls is not entirely
caused by nurture and is not completely a product of socialisation.
- Biological effects were likely to be the result of differences in sex hormones in uencing play.
- The use of children and animals in psychological research:
- Comparative psychology: the process of nding evidence that helps to explain human
behaviour by comparison to animal models.
- The study was able to isolate the effect of biology and experience to explore the causes of
gender differences in children.
- Questionable ethical issue of whether it is acceptable to manipulate the environments of
rhesus monkeys.
- It is completely unethical to manipulate the experiences of children to make them not exposed
to culturally driven socialisation.
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 Mahalaxmi Kumaran 8 AS Level Psychology 9990

Core study 3: Holzel et. al. (2011)

(Mindfulness and brain scans)
Biological approach - AS Level Psychology 9990
PSYCHOLOGY BEING INVESTIGATED:
- Mindfulness is the ability of fully concentrating on an activity while performing it.
- Mindfulness meditation is the development of awareness of present-moment experience with a
compassionate, nonjudgmental stance.
- Mindfulness meditation reduces symptoms of disorders; part of psychotherapeutic programmes:
anxiety, depression, substance abuse, eating disorders and chronic pain.
- The practice of mindfulness can develop certain parts of the brain -> localisation of function.
- Localisation of function refers to the way that particular brain areas are responsible for different
activities.
- Using FMRI scans, neuroscientists are able to investigate localisation of function.
- The hippocampus has been found to be highly involved in memory processes, modulation of
emotion and language.
- Regulation of emotion.
- Decreased volume of hippocampus in patients of PTSD and depression.
- Insula is found to localise visceral awareness -> automatic functions and empathy.
- The hippocampus and insula are found to bene t most in grey matter development from the
practice of mindfulness meditation.

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY:

- Different types of training can increase grey matter in the brain.
- Longitudinal studies show task-speci c increases in grey matter from learning various skills.
- Mindfulness meditation studies show increases in grey matter, but results vary due to differences in
study designs and participant characteristics.
- Experienced meditators may have structural brain plasticity, but cross-sectional studies can't
con rm cause-effect relationships.
- Researchers aim to investigate the cause-effect relationship between mindfulness meditation and
grey matter increase using a longitudinal experimental design.

AIM OF THE STUDY:

- To investigate with the help of an 8-week mindfulness-based stress reduction course, changes in
grey matter associated with the practice of mindfulness meditation taught in the course.

RESEARCH METHOD: LONGITUDINAL LABORATORY EXPERIMENT

EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: INDEPENDENT MEASURES

SAMPLE INFORMATION:
N = 33
MBSR participants:
- Enrolled in four MBSR courses at the centre for mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts
medical school.
- Age range: 25 to 55 years.
- Mean age: 38.9 years.
- S.D: 4.1 years.
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 Mahalaxmi Kumaran 9 AS Level Psychology 9990
- N = 16; 6 males, 10 females.
- 13 Caucasians, 1 Asian, 1 African American, 1 multi-ethnic.
- Mean of 17.7 years of education; S.D = 1.9 years.
- All right-handed.

- Inclusion criteria:
- Individuals that self-reported as physically and psychologically healthy
- Not taking any medications
- Had no meditation classes in the:
- Past 6 months,
- No more than 4 classes in the past 5 years,
- 10 classes in their lifetime,
- Had no contraindications for MRI scanning: metallic implants or claustrophobia
- And were committed to attend all eight classes and perform the prescribed daily homework.
- Initial sample had 8 males, 10 females but 2 males didn’t not return for second session due to
discomforts in the rst MRI scan.
- Paid volunteering sampling.
Control group participants:
- N = 17; 11 males, 6 females.
- Mean age = 39.0 years (S.D = 9.2 years)
- Average education = 17.3 years (S.D = 1.8 years)
- 13 Caucasians, 2 Asians, 2 African-Americans, 1 Hispanic.
- Unspeci ed sampling technique.

VARIABLES:
- IV:
- Practice of 45-minute audio-tape guided mindfulness exercises, including body scan yoga sitting
medication, daily at home for 8 weeks.
- MSBR group = level 1 = practice of the aforementioned routine.
- Control group = level 2 = no practice.
- DV #1:
- Mean scores of the MSBR and control groups on the FMMQ ( ve facet mindfulness
questionnaire - self report).
- 2 weeks before and 2 weeks after participation in the MBSR program for MBSR group.
- 2 months spaced pre and post measurements for control group.
- DV #2:
- Mean change in grey matter in the left hippocampus and insula from:
- 2 weeks before and after participation in MBSR.
- 2 months spaced pre and post measurement.

PROCEDURE:
The MBSR and control groups both completed the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) which
has 39 times that measure:
- Observing, Describing, Acting with awareness, non-judging of inner experience, non-reactivity
to inner experience.
- All questions are a ve-point Likert-type scale.
- Both groups completed the questionnaire both.
- In each group, 14 participants provided useable data at both time points.
- Participants in both groups had MRI scans of their brains on two occasions.
- MBSR participants had an average gap of approximately 56 days between two scans.
- Control group participants had an average gap of approximately 66 days between two scans.
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 Mahalaxmi Kumaran 10 AS Level Psychology 9990
- MRI scans were uses to produce a regions of interest (RoI) analysis and a whole brain analysis.
- Two regions of interest were the hippocampus and the insula.
- The whole-brain analysis was used to explore other regions potentially affected.

CONTROLS & STANDARDISATION:

- The frequency and duration of weekly meetings was the same for every participant in MBSR group.
- The audiotapes provided to each MBSR participant for the practice if mindfulness exercises were
the same.
- The MRI assessment for all participants were done using the same equipment and procedure.
- All participants had to answer the FFMQ questionnaire.
- It was ensured that the MBSR and control groups did not differ in age by using signi cance testing
to remove age as a participant variable.
- The MBSR group recorded the amount of time they spent engaged in mindfulness exercises each
day.
- It was ensured that the three homework exercise were not signi cantly correlated with each other.
- Age and gender were entered as nuisance variables.

THE MBSR PROGRAM & PROCEDURE:

- Daily practice of mindfulness:
- Participants in the group received audio recordings containing 45-minute guided mindfulness
exercised of body scan, yoga and sitting meditation.
- They were instructed to practise daily at home.
- They we also thought to practise mindfulness informally in everyday activities.
- Participants were asked to record the amount of time they spent on mindfulness practices at
home everyday.
- During meetings, the formal exercises were practised, questions regarding mindfulness in everyday
life were clari ed and didactic instructions were given on coping with stress using mindfulness.
- The MSBR program consists of eight weekly group meetings for 2.5 hours and one full day meeting
(6.5 hours) during week six.
- The formal training program included:
- A body scan where attention is sequentially focused on the entire body.
- Mindful yoga including gentle stretching exercises and slow movements.
- Sitting meditation begins with awareness of the sensations of breathing.

RESULTS:
- MBSR participants time engaged in formal homework exercises = mean: 22.6 hours.
- Amount of body scan practice: range = 335 - 1002 minutes, mean = 699 minutes.
- Yoga practice: range = 103 - 775 minutes, mean = 327 minutes.
- Sitting meditation practice: range - 0 - 775 minutes, mean = 322 minutes.
- Mean amount for all three exercises per day = 27 minutes.
- FFMQ:
- MBSR showed signi cantly higher scores after the 8-week course, in these three sub scales:
- Acting with awareness,
- Observing,
- Non-judging of inner-experience.
- Control group didn’t show any such signi cant increase upon pre and post comparison of their
scores.
- Grey matter:
- Signi cant growth in a small cluster of neurons in the left hippocampus of the MBSR group
after the program.
- No such signi cant growth in the control group.
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 Mahalaxmi Kumaran 11 AS Level Psychology 9990
- No signi cant growth in neurone of insula for MBSR nor control group.
- Four clusters with signi cantly greater grey matter concentration post the program:
- Posterior cingulate cortex (PCC): develops autobiographical memories.
- Left temporoparietal junction (TPJ): conscious experience of the self.
- Two clusters in the cerebellum: lateral cerebellum and cerebellar vermis/brainstem.

CONCLUSION:
- Concentration of grey matter increases the regions: hippocampus, posterior cingulate cortex, left
temporoparietal junction and cerebellum in those who practise an 8-week mindfulness-based stress
reduction course.

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS & EVALUATION:

- Sample:
- Increased internal validity due to strict inclusion criteria.
- Increased reliability due to only right handed participants (consistent comparison of grey
matter).
- Reduced generalisability due to selective sampling.
- Doesn’t represent people in other mindfulness courses.
- Doesn’t represent people who aren’t enrolled in any mindfulness course.
- Reduced generalisability due to uneven ethnic representation.
- Increased validity due to participants volunteering -> commitment and sincerity.
- Demand characteristics due to compensation -> increased efforts into practicing -> not
ecologically valid.
- Experiment design:
- Reduced order effects due to the long gap between pre- and post- scans.
- Increased participant variables -> participants could have different naturally in terms of
neurogenetic ability.
- MRI scanning is time consuming and costly to do for 2 whole groups of participants.
- Variables:
- Increased validity (temporal validity) due to longitudinal study.
- Increased reliability due to standardisation of the programme.
- Reduced validity due to lack of supervision during participant practice.
- Reduced validity due to a passive control group.
- Increased validity due to quantitative measurement on FFMQ.
- Increased reliability due to standardisation of FFMQ.
- Reduced validity due to self-report measurement of FFMQ.
- Reduced scope of ndings due to absence of qualitative measurements in FFMQ.
- Increased validity due to quantitative measurement of grey matter.
- Increased validity due to use of brain scanning technology.
- Decreased validity from the general effects on grey matter from learning new material.
- Informed consent, right to withdraw, con dentiality, right to privacy, lack of deception, protection
from harm all maintained.

ISSUES, DEBATES AND APPROACHES:

- Application of psychology to everyday life:
- Enrolment into MBSR or mindfulness programs for stress reduction.
- Practice of mindfulness meditation for emotional regulation, development of empathy and
memory.
- Can be a preventive measure for mental health issues.
- Treatment for depression, PTSD using mindfulness meditation.
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 Mahalaxmi Kumaran 12 AS Level Psychology 9990
- Individual vs situational explanation:
- Individual efforts and change in behaviour and practice of mindfulness mediation resulted in
the bene ts of mindfulness meditation.
- The thorough external support and guidance (audiotapes, meetings etc..) enables individuals
implement their individual practices.
- Nature vs nurture:
- The human brain demonstrates neuroplasticity by nature even in adulthood.
- Using this plasticity, mindfulness’s bene ts are gained.
- The correct practice of mindfulness has to be learnt to gain bene ts.

Assumptions of the cognitive approach:

1. There are similarities between the way people and computers process information.
2. Individual differences in cognitive processes [attention, language, thinking, memory] can help to
explain our differing behaviour and emotions.
- Individual differences are stable and enduring ways in which people vary in terms of emotion,
behaviour or cognition.
- Psychologists are interested in making generalisations but also in individual differences.

Core study 4: Andrade (2010)

(Doodling)
Cognitive approach - AS Level Psychology 9990
PSYCHOLOGY BEING INVESTIGATED:
- Primary task is the activity we are supposed to be concentrating on.
- Attention: the concentration of mental effort on a particular stimulus.
- It can be focused or divided.
- Divided attention: the ability to split mental effort between two or more simultaneous tasks.
- Attention is required for the encoding stage of the memory process.
- Recall is used as a measure of attention.
- Divided attention is easier when the tasks involved are simple, well practiced and automatic.
- Concurrent task is an additional activity with a cognitive demand that we can perform at the same
as a primary (main) task.
- The concept of divided attention suggests that doodling would worsen performance; if both tasks
are highly practised and automatic, it may not.
- The effect of doodling could also improve performance by raising arousal and enhance focused
attention of the primary task.
- The working memory model of short-term memory suggests that two different of current/working
memory can be used at the same time: visuospatial and auditory.
- Doodling might aid concentration by reducing daydreaming.
- Focused attention is the picking out of a particular input from a mass of information.
- Daydreaming is linked to arousal.
- Daydreaming uses important cognitive processing resources so inhibits performance on tasks that
use this resource, including attention and memory.
- Doodling may help to maintain arousal, which would also enhance performance on the primary task.
- Daydreaming is a mildly altered state of consciousness in which we experience a sense of being
‘lost in our thoughts’ and a detachment from our environment.
- Arousal is the extent to which are alert.
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 Mahalaxmi Kumaran 13 AS Level Psychology 9990
- It had physiological and psychological components and is mediated by the nervous system and
hormones.

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY:

- Andrade de nes doodling as the sketching of patterns and gures that are unrelated to the primary
task.
- Wilson and Korn (2007): doodling may help maintain an optional arousal level.
- The concurrent task of doodling will interfere less with overall processing than devoting a greater
amount of central executive function to daydreaming.
- In this study, the primary task is an auditory listening task while the doodling is a visuo-spatial task.

AIM OF THE STUDY: TO FIND WHETHER DOODLING WOULD AID INFORMATION PROCESSING
BY INCREASING THE EFFICACY OF LISTENING OR ENHANCING MEMORY.
RESEARCH METHOD: LABORATORY EXPERIMENT
EXPERIMENT DESIGN: INDEPENDENT MEASURES DESIGN

SAMPLE INFORMATION:
- N = 40 people.
- Age range = 18 to 55.
- Opportunity sample: participants were paid a sum.
- Random allocation was used.
- Control group: n=20, 18 F and 2 M.
- Doodling group: n=20, 17 F and 3 M.

VARIABLES:
- IV: Doodling or No Doodling
- DV: Number of names recalled correctly:
- The number of names recalled correctly consisted of the the memory score from the
‘monitoring task’ and the ‘recall task.’
- The monitoring task was when they were told beforehand and tested on the names of people
who were attending the party.
- The recall task was unexpected and asked the names of places mentioned.
- The order of these tasks were counterbalanced.
- Plausible mis-hearings of names were counted as correct.
- Other names that were on the tape but not party-goers were recorded as false alarms.
- Completely new names generated were also considered false alarms.

PROCEDURE:
- Participants listed to a boring, stimulated phone conversation describing a birthday party and
individuals who are going and not going there.
- Several places were mentioned too.
- The phone call lasted 2.5 minutes and included 8 names of the party-goers and 3 of the non-party-
goers as well as 8 place names.
- Individuals in the doodling group were provided an A4 paper with outlined shapes and were
encouraged to doodle while listening to the conversation.
- Those in the control group were not.
- They were told they will be tested on recalling the names of the individuals who will go to the
party - the monitoring task.
- There was a recall task in which they were asked to remember the names of the places mentioned.
- Counterbalancing was used [the order of the monitoring and recall task was randomised] to reduce
order effects.
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- The DV was operationalised by accepting the names misspelled due to the participants hearing it
wrong and considering the names of the individuals who weren’t going to the party as false alarms.
- The nal score was calculated by subtracting the false alarms from the number of correct names
provided.
- The experimenter debriefed the participants about the memory and apologised for deceiving them.

CONTROLS & STANDARDISATION:

- All participants were given standardised instructions.
- The doodling group was given an A4 sheet with alternating rows of circles and square (10 per row)
with a wide margin on the left to note names and a pencil and were asked to shade the squares and
circles while listening.
- The control group was given a sheet of lined paper to note down names.
- The tape was played at a comfortable volume.

RESULTS:
- The mean number of shaded shapes on the printed shape was 36.3; the range was 3-110.
- No participants in the control group doodled.
Mean for each group
Task Measure
Control Doodling

Correct 4.3 5.3

Names - Monitoring task False alarm 0.4 0.3

Memory score 4.0 5.1

Correct 2.1 2.6

Places - recall task False alarm 0.3 0.3

Memory score 1.8 2.4

Overall, the doodling participants recalled 29% more than the mean of names and places of the
Control group.
Recall for both tasks were better for doodlers than control.

CONCLUSION:
- Doodling helps concentration on a primary task.
- Two possible explanations for doodling group performing better:
- Doodlers noticed more of the target words, having an effect on attention.
- Doodling reduced daydreaming, increasing arousal -> maintaining attention on the
primary task.
- Doodling improved memory directly, by eg. encouraging deeper information processing.
- Without any measure of daydreaming, it is dif cult to distinguish between these two
explanations.
EVALUATION OF THE STUDY:
Positives +VE: Negatives -VE:

- +VE: Because laboratory experiment and independent - -VE: risk of participant variables as the number of shapes shaded
measures: limited uncontrolled variables. different.

- +VE: standardised procedure, increasing validity and reliability - -VE: volunteer sampling, the participants could all be similar,
[participants were made to be bored by using monotonous reducing validity.
audio etc..]
⁃ Some ethical issues are present.
- +VE: operationalised standardisation of doodling, increased ⁃ -VE: Attention, memory and daydreaming were not measured
validity. [asking about what participants daydreamed about would be
invasion of privacy.]
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Positives +VE: Negatives -VE:

- +VE: attempted to encourage the participants to doodle in a ⁃ -VE: participants weren’t asked for fully informed consent [the
naturalistic way, increased validity. unexpected recall task was not mentioned before.]

- +VE: representative ages in the sample. ⁃ -VE: Protection from harm might have been breached if
participants faced emotional distress of not being able to recall
names in the recall task.

- +VE: Objective and quantitative data collected, increasing ⁃ -VE: A debrief at the end was conducted to apologise for
reliability. misleading the participants about the tests in the experiment,
however.

ISSUES, DEBATES AND APPROACHES:

- The application of psychology in everyday life:
- Doodling could become counterproductive by becoming the primary task, distracting the focus
of the person.
- This knowledge could be used by students to enable doodling for an effective purpose.
- Individual vs situational explanations:
- As doodling affected recall, this shows a situational effect on information processing.
- However, people do not doodle in the same way.
- This shows an individual difference behind doodling behaviour.

Core study 5: Baron-Cohen et. al.

(2001) (Eyes test)
Cognitive approach - AS Level Psychology 9990
PSYCHOLOGY BEING INVESTIGATED:
- Autism spectrum disorder (ASD): a diagnostic category
- Symptoms, appearing in childhood, present a range of dif culties with social interaction and
communication, restricted or in exible behaviours or interests.
- Individuals with ASD do not fully develop cognitive processes linked to social interaction.
- Individuals with ASD share dif culties in social functioning —> limited social sensitivity,
communication, ability to cope with change, and may have narrow interests.
- HFA - high functioning autism.
- AS - Asperger’s syndrome.
- Baron-Cohen suggest ASD individuals lack or have an underdeveloped cognitive process called
theory of mind.
- Theory of mind: a cognitive ability that enables one person to comprehend that other people have
separate feelings, beliefs, knowledge and desires that can be different from their own.
- It enables one person to detect the emotional state of another person.
- 1997: Baron-Cohen developed a ‘Reading the mind in the eyes’ test to use with adults to test their
ability to identify the emotional state that other people are in.
- This task tests the rst stage of theory of mind: assigning an appropriate mental state to
another person.
- This task is a good measure of social cognition.

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY:

- Using a rst version of the ‘reading the mind in the eyes’ test, they investigated whether adults with
ASD had problems with theory of mind.
- They compared a group of individuals with ASD and people who didn’t have an ASD diagnosis.
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- The participants were shown photographs of eyes and asked to identify the emotion being show
from two options.
- Participants needed to empathise with the person in the photograph to work out their emotional
state —> uses cognitive processes associated with theory of mind.
- The results showed ASD group identi ed fewer emotions correctly compared to the non-ASD group.
- There were practical issues with the study that were xed in the revised version.

Original rst version of the test: Revised version of the test [solutions]:

- Forced choice questions with 2 options that are always semantic - The number of options to choose increased to 4 and are not
opposites. semantic opposites.

- Only 25 sets of eyes were used, creating a ceiling effect. - 36 sets were used in the nal analysis.
- Eyes illustrated both basic and complex emotions. The basic ones - Only complex emotions were used.
were too easy.

- Emotions in some pictures could be guessed by the direction of the - These pictures were removed.
gaze.

- Imbalance of female and male eyes [female eyes are easier to read]. - Equal number of female and male eyes were used.

- Participants might have not understood the vocabulary of the word - They were given a glossary.
choices.

Ceiling effect: occurs when a test is too easy and all participants in a condition achieve a high score.

AIM OF THE STUDY:

- To investigate whether:
- An improved revised version of the eyes test would show a clear impairment in a group of
adults with ASD to assess its effectiveness.
- There was an association between performance on the revised test and the measure of traits
of ASD.
- There are sex differences in scores (RET) of those without ASD.
- Five testing hypotheses:
- Participants with ASD will score signi cantly lower scores on the revised eyes test than the
control group.
- Participants with ASD will score signi cantly higher on the Autism spectrum quotient test
measure than the control group.
- The autism spectrum quotient test (AQ): a self-report questionnaire with scores ranging
from 0-50.
- A higher score suggests that the person has more autistic traits.
- Females in the ‘normal' groups (2 and 3) will score higher on the RET than the males in these
groups.
- Males in the ‘normal’ group (3) will score higher on the AQ measure than females.
- Scores on the AQ and eyes test will be negatively correlated.

RESEARCH METHOD: LABORATORY EXPERIMENT

- Quasi-experiment [refers to the fact that these experiments often have lots of control over the
procedure, but not over how participants are allocated to conditions.]
EXPERIMENT DESIGN: INDEPENDENT GROUPS
VARIABLES:
- IV: type of participant in each condition:
- 3 control groups (groups 2-4)
- Experimental group with AS or HFA (group 1)
- DV:
- 1. Score on the revised eye test.
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- 2. AQ test results for groups 1, 3 and 4.
- [Note: for participants in AS/HFA and the IQ matched control condition, IQ was measured.
- IQ was measured using the short WAIS-R test:
- Measures 4 aspect of intelligence using tests of block design, vocabulary, similarities
and picture completion.]

SAMPLE AND SAMPLING METHOD:

- Group 1: AS/HFA:
- N = 15
- Age = 29.7 years (mean)
- IQ = 115
- Volunteer sampling from the UK National autistic society advertisement.
- Group 2: Adult comparison:
- N = 122
- 55M, 67F
- Age = 46.5 years (mean)
- Opportunity sampling.
- Group 3: Student Comparison group (age-matched to HFA/AS group):
- N = 103
- 53 M, 50F
- Age = 20.8 years (mean)
- Opportunity sampling from Cambridge university (might have higher IQ levels)
- Group 4: IQ matched
- N = 14
- IQ = 116
- Age = 23 years (mean)
- Random selection with matched pair from group 1.
- Was used to rule out effect of IQ on RET.

PROCEDURE:
- Prior to the study, a pilot study was conducted to assess if the words the images of eyes are related
to are accurate.
PILOT STUDY:
- Baron-Cohen and Wheelwright originated target words and foils for 36 photos.
- Out of 8 judges, at least 5 judges were asked to vote on the most appropriate label for each of the
eyes.
- At least 5 had to agree on the target word, and no more than 2 judges could select any single word.
- Groups 2 and 3 achieved 100% on judging gender of the eyes.
- Control groups were test with 40 images but 4 were eliminated.
…
- Participants in all groups were asked to complete the RET ask.
- Participants in all group except the adult comparison group did the AQ test.
- AS/HFA groups were also asked to determine the gender of each eye.

RESULTS:
- RET: participants in HFA/AS (G1) identi ed fewer eyes correctly than other groups.
- AQ:
- HFA/AS (G1) scored higher than the Student and IQ matched groups (G3 and 4).
- In the student group (G3), there were substantial difference in AQ scores between males and
female.
- Sex differences:
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- HFA/AS (G1) identi ed 33/36 gender of the eyes correctly.
- Between the Adult group and the student group (G2 and 3), sex differences were apparent but
not signi cant in RET - males scored lower than females.
- Correlations:
- Negative correlation between AQ scores and RET scores.
- Higher the AQ, lower the ability to recognise emotions.
- No negative correlation between IQ level and RET scores.
Group: Number of Mean scores
participants
RET test AQ test

1: HFA/AS 15 21.9 34.4 [n=14 didn’t return the test]

2: Adult comparison 122 26.2 -

3: Student comparison 103 28.0 18.3 [n=79 didn’t return the test]

4: IQ matched 14 30.9 18.9

CONCLUSION:
- AIM 1: the study showed that the revised eyes test is a more sensitive measure of adult social
intelligence.
- Aim 2: the results indicate that AS/HFA participants had a speci c de cit in a cognitive process that
aids to identity emotions in others, which is a factor that makes up theory of mind.
- This is further validated by the AS/NHFA group’s ability to identify the gender of the eyes
accurately.
- This proves that the eyes test detected a subtly and speci c impairment in HFA/AS
participants.
- Aim 3: there was evidence of a sex difference in the comparison groups.
- Males had lower scores on the RET and showed greater levels of autistic traits on the AQ test,
than females.
- However, the differences were not signi cant.

EVALUATION OF THE STUDY:

Positives +ve: Negatives -ve:
- Extremely standardised, limits extraneous variables due to lab - Low ecological validity due to lab experiment
experiment: high validity and reliability. setup.
- Due to usage of independent measures design, less effect of
demand characteristics and no order effects.
- Lots of participants used, possibly increasing generalisability. - Important individual differences in
independent measures design could lead to
- HFA/AS participants were diagnosed in specialist centres, participant variables.
increasing validity.
- IQ matched group is represented as they were picked from the - Low representation in HFA/AS group as only
general population. males were used.
- 36 eyes with equal female and male eyes in the RET increases
validity due to equal representation.
- There are 4 emotion word choices in the RET —> no ceiling effect. - Unrepresentative (group 3 - student
comparison) due to high education (Cambridge
- Less bias as foil and target words are chosen by proper voting and university).
judgement system.
- Removed a potential confounding variable (IQ) by comparing with a - Low representation due to small sample size
IQ-matched group. (group 4 - IQ).
- Representative HFA/AS group due to sample size.
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Positives +ve: Negatives -ve:
- Increased representation due to different economic and education - Participants in group 1 (volunteer sampling)
backgrounds of group 2 participants. may have similar characteristics.
- Volunteer sampling used for AS/HFA groups: increased commitment
towards the experiment.
- Increased validity due to quiet, controlled individual environment - Due to it being a quasi experiment, random
during tests. allocation not possible —> confounding
variables.
- Increased validity due to the availability of a glossary.
- High reliability due to qualitative data being collected. - Low validity: psychometric tests may not
always test what they claim to test.
- Highly replicable due to the nature of the experiment, quantitative
data collected, and the controls and standardisations in place.
- All ethical considerations were taken into account.
- However, the ndings of the study: ’normal’ and ‘impaired’ performance may be seen as representing
neurodiverse groups in a negative way.
- Still, this ndings could be used for greater understanding of neurodiverse people in society/school/
work, making it an ethical strength.

ISSUES, DEBATES AND APPROACHES:

- Application of psychology in real life:
- Programmes could be conducted to help people with AS/HFA in developing their skills of
interpreting emotions.
- The eyes test could be improved to help diagnose individuals who may have underlying
autistic disorders.
- The RET test could also be developed further to create programmes to help ASD individuals
develop the skills of interpreting emotions.
- Individual vs. Situational Explanations
- The AS/HFA group performed signi cantly worse on the RET than the 'normal' group. This
suggests that the ability to identify mental states is an individual skill that is underdeveloped.
- The environment had been standardised (supports individual explanation).
- Nature vs nurture
- Role of nurture not explored in the Baron-Cohen study.
- There are both nurture and nature explanations for the cause of ASD.

Core study 6: Pozzulo et. al. (2011)

(line-ups)
Cognitive approach - AS Level Psychology 9990
PSYCHOLOGY BEING INVESTIGATED:
- 2 key aspects of psychology:
- Eye witness identi cation
- In uence of social vs cognitive factors on decision-making [speci c to young children].
- Eye-witness identi cation is a critical area in forensic psychology.
- It takes about the reliability and accuracy of eye-witness testimony.
- It involves recognising a suspect from a line-up.
- It is a complex process and depends on various factors like memory, perception and
psychological stress.
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- Social vs cognitive in uence:
- Cognitive factors are mental processes involved in memory and recognition.
- In the context of eyewitness identi cation, cognitive factors include a person’s ability to
accurately recall and recognise faces or details from the memory of the event.
- Social factors involve the in uence of social content and the pressures on decision-making.
[De nitions from textbook:
- False memory: a piece of stored information an individual believes to be an accurate memory but
which is the consequence of later additional and untrue information.
- Eyewitness testimony is evidence provided by an individual who has seen or heard a crime being
committed.
- Line-up is a source of evidence used by the legal system where a witness is shown a line of people
or array of photographs of faces and is asked to attempt to identify the perpetrator of the crime.
- False positive response is giving an af rmative but incorrect answer to a question.]

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY:

- The study addresses the developmental aspects of memory and cognition in children, exploring how
these factors in uence their ability to accurately recall and identify individuals in line ups.
- It studied child witnesses and recognised cognitive effects [like post-event information] on errors in
decision-making.
- Pozzulo suggested that children are more likely to make incorrect decisions in a line-up as a result
of social factors, like:
- Children might think that they need to choose one of the people, and might not be aware that
the culprit is not there, when they are asked to select which one of the people is the culprit.
- A child might view the adult as an authority gure making them more compliant to requests.
- Children might feel more pressured to choose someone even if the correct person isn’t there,
unlike adults.
- The study examined age-related differences in memory accuracy and susceptibility to suggestion
and leading questions -> crucial factors in legal contexts where children may be eyewitnesses.
- The study studies the speci cs of eyewitness identi cation procedures:
- Target-present
- Target-absent
- The study builds on existing research on the accuracy and reliability of child eyewitness testimony
by comparing it with adults.
- The comparison is important to nd at what developmental stage children’s eyewitness abilities
being to resemble those of adults.
- It also shows us what factors might affect a child’s eyewitness testimony accuracy.
[Important de nitions:
- Target-absent line up is where the culprit is not presented (requires the ability to reject faces
correctly).
- Target-present line up is where the culprit is present (requires the ability to identify the correct
face).
- Simultaneous line ups is when both suspects and all known innocent persons are lined up
together.]

AIMS OF THE STUDY:

- To determine the role of social and cognitive factors in line-up identi cation.
- To assess whether false identi cation in target-absent line-ups are more in uenced by social
pressure rather than cognitive abilities.
- To compare false positive rates between children and adults:
- Hypothesised that children and adults might have similar correct identi cation rates in easy
lineups.
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- Children would show a higher rate of false positives in target absent lineups, indicating greater
susceptibility to social in uence compared to adults.
- 4 testing predictions:
- Children will be as good as adults at identifying cartoon faces in target-present line-up.
- Children will be worse than adults at identifying human faces in target-present line-up.
- Children will be worse than adults at rejecting cartoon faces in target-absent line-up.
- Children will be worse than adults at rejecting human faces in a target-absent line-up.

RESEARCH METHOD: LABORATORY EXPERIMENT [MIXED FRACTIONAL]

- 2 (children vs adults) x 2 (target-present vs target-absent) design
EXPERIMENT DESIGN:
- Independent measures for the comparison between children and adults.
- For the comparisons of line-up types, it was repeated measures.

VARIABLES:
- IVs:
- 1. Age -> children vs adults.
- 2. Type of line-up -> target-present and target-absent.
- 3. Level of cognitive demand -> familiarity ion how well you know the cartoon.
- Familiar (low cognitive demand)
- Unfamiliar (high cognitive demand).
- DV: if the participant identi ed the correct face if present or the empty silhouette if not.

SAMPLE AND SAMPLING TECHNIQUE:

- Adults:
- n = 53.
- Age: 17-30 (mean = 20.54).
- 36F, 17M.
- Recruited from a introductory psychology participant pool at Eastern Ontario University.
- Volunteer sampling.
- Children:
- n = 59.
- Age: 4 - 7 (mean = 4.98).
- 21F, 38M.
- Recruited from a private school in Easter Ontario, Canada.
- Volunteer sampling.

PROCEDURE:
- Researchers prepared videos and photo array line-ups for stimuli.
Video clips: Photo arrays (line-ups):

Human face targets: Human face targets:

- 2 Caucasian students. - Same 2 Caucasian students with different clothes than the video.
- 6-second clip of female brushing her hair, male putting on coat. - 4 foil photographers chosen by three raters based on face, hair
- In colour, no sound. similarities.
- 2-3 seconds of the individual’s face. - Photos were cropped to include only face, neck and top of
shoulders.

Cartoon face targets: Cartoon face targets:

- Dora the Explorer and Go, Diego, Go! - Still images of the same 2 cartoon targets.
- 6-second clip of Dora talking to the audience, Diego putting on - 4 most similar foil images chosen from the internet.
a pair of safety gloves. - 10 cartoon images were judged by three fathers for similarity.
- In colour, no sound. - Photos were cropped to the face; all episodes same clothing only
2-3 seconds of cartoon character’s face. the character wears.

- Target-present line-ups contained the target + three foils.

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- Target-absent line-ups contained four foils.
- Every line-up had a blank silhouette to enable a choice to be made even if the participant judged
that the target was not present.
- Simultaneous array was used; all the foils and and blank silhouette were shown at once.
- The position of each target in the line-up was randomised.
- For the equivalent target-absent line-up, the fourth foil was located in the same position as the
original target.
- All photos were shown in black and white [bright colours could have been a confounding variable
and become the focus of recognition].
- Each participant watched four videos in a random order, followed by a ller task and a line-up task.
- In each of the four line-up tasks, the positions of the target or its matching foil was
counterbalanced.
- Videos and photos were shown on a 13-inch laptop screen.
[Procedure followed before the experiment:
- Every participant / participant’s parents or guardians were given a written consent form.
- The adult participants went to the lab and were briefed that it was a study about memory.
- For the children, three female experimenters went to the children’s school and briefed that it was a
project on TV shows and computer games.
- It was made clear to the children about their right to withdraw.
- Experimenters rst did some craft work with the children to make them comfortable.
- The female experimenters wore professional-causal clothing and not overtly formal to reduce the
in uence of authority and social pressure on the children.]
[Procedure during the experiment:
- Child and adult participants were test individually.
- They were asked to pay attention because they would be asked some questions and shown some
pictures after.
- After the videos, participants were asked a free recall/ ller question:
- Children: what did the cartoon character/person look like?
- Adults: do you remember anything else?
- If they didn’t respond/follow up question:
- Children: do you remember anything from the video?
- Adults: do you remember anything else about the cartoon character/person?
- Children’s responses were recorded by the researchers.
- Adults (self-reported) wrote their responses down.
- After each ller task, children were asked to look at the photo, to point at the person/cartoon or the
blank silhouette if the person/cartoon is not there.
- The adults were asked to write their response on a matching sheet.
- The procedure was repeated for all the 4 videos to be seen and responded to.

RESULTS:
- The reseachers investigated two differences:
- 1. The difference between children’s and adult’s identi cation and rejection accuracy (Child vs
Adult).
- 2. The difference in children’s accuracy between cartoon characters and humans (Cartoon vs
Human face).
- Adults were better than children at most tasks.
- The responses to cartoons were generally more accurate than responses to human targets.
- There was little difference between the response of children and adults in the target-preset for
cartoons.
- Target-present identi cation:
- Cartoon vs Humans: children and adults signi cantly more accurate at identifying cartoon
faces than human faces.
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- Children vs Adults: [as per prediction]
- Cartoon - children have similar accuracy as adults for identifying cartoon faces.
- Humans - children have signi cantly less accuracy than adults for identifying human
faces.
- Target-absent rejection:
- Cartoon vs Humans: children and adults signi cantly more accurate at rejecting cartoon faces
than human faces.
- Children vs Adults: [as per prediction] - children signi cantly less accurate than adults at
rejecting cartoon and human faces.

CONCLUSION OF THE STUDY:

- As predicted, children could easily nd the correct face in the target-present line-up with cartoons -
almost 100% accuracy [ceiling effect].
- Any error in the target-absent line-up for cartoons must be a result of social factors than cognitive
factors.
- It cannot be explained by a faulty memory for the faces of cartoon characters,.
- The most likely social factor is a low correct rejection rate by children.
- [the expectation that they should make a selection than a non-selection.
- The difference seen between children and adults in rejection rate for human faces, which is similar
to the rejection of cartoon faces is because of the effects of social demands.
- Both identi cation and rejection will be affected by both cognitive and social factors.
- Only for children, social factors play a larger part in decision-making in target-absent line-ups than
in target-present line-ups.
EVALUATION OF THE STUDY:
- +ve: Laboratory experiment -> highly standardised -> high reliability.
- +ve: Controlled environment and standardised stimuli -> high validity.
- +ve: The test was made accessible for both children and adults by asking children to point out ->
increasing validity.
- +ve: Clearly operationalised DV -> high validity.
- +ve: Quantitative data -> high reliability, objective.
- +ve: By calculating mean scores for each child, target-speci c peculiarities and anomalies were
controlled.
- +ve: Counterbalancing and randomisation used in position of targets in line-ups and video presents,
reduced order effects and biases -> high internal validity.
- +ve: The comfort and well-being of children were ensured.
- +ve: Potential demand characteristics were reduced by not sharing the true aim -> high internal
validity.
- -ve: Low ecological validity; controlled lab setting differs from the environment that eyewitness
identi cations mostly occurs.
- -ve: Bias from using familiar vs unfamiliar targets (cartoons and humans) -> overestimation of
children’s identi cation abilities in more realistic situations.
- -ve: Limited age range (4-7): reduced generalisability -> developmental differences in memory and
suggestibility vary signi cantly across different ages in children.
- Ethics:
- If children in the study were victims of real crime, there was a risk of considerably potential for
harm.
- Study was not crime-related -> children were not at risk.
- Consent was gained from parents and themselves.
- Right-to-withdraw, comfort and monitoring of their fatigue, anxiety and stress were ensure:
protection from harm.
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ISSUES, DEBATES AND APPROACHES:
- The application of psychology to everyday life:
- The study demonstrates that children would not be as reliable witnesses as adults in everyday
life.
- In a real police line-up, children are more likely to give false positive responses.
- Due to the social situation, children have worse memories.
- The reliability of child witness information can be improved by investigating ways to combat
the social factors that reduce the accuracy.
- Individual vs situational explanation:
- The relatively poor performance of child witnesses in target-absent line-ups was due to social
demands.
- It is unlikely that there is an individual explanation for difference in accuracy between children
and adults.
- Children as participants:
- This study demonstrates effective ways to conduct research using children.
- The procedure was practically changed to help children access the tasks and respond raids.y
- Ethical procedures were also maintained tailored to the needs of child participants.