A theoretical analysis of eyewitness identification: Dual -process theory, signal detection theory and eyewitness confidence

Given the growing number of wrongful convictions involving faulty eyewitness evidence and the strong reliance by jurors on eyewitness testimony, researchers have sought to develop safeguards to decrease erroneous identifications. While decades of eyewitness research have led to numerous recommendations for the collection of eyewitness evidence, less is known regarding the psychological processes that govern identification responses. The purpose of the current research was to expand the theoretical knowledge of eyewitness identification decisions by exploring two separate memory theories: signal detection theory and dual-process theory. This was accomplished by examining both system and estimator variables in the context of a novel lineup recognition paradigm. Both theories were also examined in conjunction with confidence to determine whether it might add significantly to the understanding of eyewitness memory. ^ In two separate experiments, both an encoding and a retrieval-based manipulation were chosen to examine the application of theory to eyewitness identification decisions. Dual-process estimates were measured through the use of remember-know judgments (Gardiner & Richardson-Klavehn, 2000). In Experiment 1, the effects of divided attention and lineup presentation format (simultaneous vs. sequential) were examined. In Experiment 2, perceptual distance and lineup response deadline were examined. Overall, the results indicated that discrimination and remember judgments (recollection) were generally affected by variations in encoding quality and response criterion and know judgments (familiarity) were generally affected by variations in retrieval options. Specifically, as encoding quality improved, discrimination ability and judgments of recollection increased; and as the retrieval task became more difficult there was a shift toward lenient choosing and more reliance on familiarity. ^ The application of signal detection theory and dual-process theory in the current experiments produced predictable results on both system and estimator variables. These theories were also compared to measures of general confidence, calibration, and diagnosticity. The application of the additional confidence measures in conjunction with signal detection theory and dual-process theory gave a more in-depth explanation than either theory alone. Therefore, the general conclusion is that eyewitness identifications can be understood in a more complete manor by applying theory and examining confidence. Future directions and policy implications are discussed. ^

A longitudinal study of Project Trio: A dropout prevention program in a large urban environment

The subject of dropout prevention/reduction is deservedly receiving attention as a problem that, if not resolved, could threaten our national future.^ This study investigates a small segment of the overall dropout problem, which has apparently unique features of program design and population selection. The evidence presented here should add to the knowledge bank of this complicated problem.^ Project Trio was one of a number of dropout prevention programs and activities which were conducted in Dade County school years 1984-85 and 1985-86, and it is here investigated longitudinally through the end of the 1987-88 school year. It involved 17 junior and senior high schools, and 27 programs, 10 the first year and 17 the second, with over 1,000 total students, who had been selected by the schools from a list of the "at risk" students provided by the district, and were divided approximately evenly into the classical research design of an experimental group and the control group, which following standard procedure was to take the regular school curriculum. No school had more than 25 students in either group.^ Each school modified the basic design of the project to accommodate the individual school characteristics and the perceived needs of their students; however all schools projects were to include some form of academic enhancement, counseling and career awareness study.^ The conclusion of this study was that the control group had a significantly lower dropout rate than the experimental group. Though impossible to make a certain determination of the reasons for this unexpected result, it appears from evidence presented that one cause may have been inadequate administration at the local level.^ This study was also a longitudinal investigation of the "at risk" population as a whole for the three and four year period, to determine if academic factors were present in records may be used to identify dropout proneness.^ A significant correlation was found between dropping out and various measures including scores on the Quality of School Life Instrument, attendance, grade point averages, mathematics grades, and overage in grade, important identifiers in selection for dropout prevention programs. ^

Infants' selective attention to faces and prosody of speech: The roles of intersensory redundancy and exploratory time

One of the overarching questions in the field of infant perceptual and cognitive development concerns how selective attention is organized during early development to facilitate learning. The following study examined how infants' selective attention to properties of social events (i.e., prosody of speech and facial identity) changes in real time as a function of intersensory redundancy (redundant audiovisual, nonredundant unimodal visual) and exploratory time. Intersensory redundancy refers to the spatially coordinated and temporally synchronous occurrence of information across multiple senses. Real time macro- and micro-structural change in infants' scanning patterns of dynamic faces was also examined. ^ According to the Intersensory Redundancy Hypothesis, information presented redundantly and in temporal synchrony across two or more senses recruits infants' selective attention and facilitates perceptual learning of highly salient amodal properties (properties that can be perceived across several sensory modalities such as the prosody of speech) at the expense of less salient modality specific properties. Conversely, information presented to only one sense facilitates infants' learning of modality specific properties (properties that are specific to a particular sensory modality such as facial features) at the expense of amodal properties (Bahrick & Lickliter, 2000, 2002). ^ Infants' selective attention and discrimination of prosody of speech and facial configuration was assessed in a modified visual paired comparison paradigm. In redundant audiovisual stimulation, it was predicted infants would show discrimination of prosody of speech in the early phases of exploration and facial configuration in the later phases of exploration. Conversely, in nonredundant unimodal visual stimulation, it was predicted infants would show discrimination of facial identity in the early phases of exploration and prosody of speech in the later phases of exploration. Results provided support for the first prediction and indicated that following redundant audiovisual exposure, infants showed discrimination of prosody of speech earlier in processing time than discrimination of facial identity. Data from the nonredundant unimodal visual condition provided partial support for the second prediction and indicated that infants showed discrimination of facial identity, but not prosody of speech. The dissertation study contributes to the understanding of the nature of infants' selective attention and processing of social events across exploratory time.^

Industry Education: The Merger Continues

In the discussion - Industry Education: The Merger Continues - by Rob Heiman Assistant Professor Hospitality Food Service Management at Kent State University, the author originally declares, “Integrating the process of an on-going catering and banquet function with that of selected behavioral academic objectives leads to an effective, practical course of instruction in catering and banquet management. Through an illustrated model, this article highlights such a merger while addressing a variety of related problems and concerns to the discipline of hospitality food service management education.” The article stresses the importance of blending the theoretical; curriculum based learning process with that of a hands-on approach, in essence combining an in-reality working program, with academics, to develop a well rounded hospitality student. “How many programs are enjoying the luxury of excessive demand for students from industry [?],” the author asks in proxy for, and to highlight the immense need for qualified personnel in the hospitality industry. As the author describes it, “An ideal education program concerns itself with the integration of theory and simulation with hands-on experience to teach the cognitive as well as the technical skills required to achieve the pre-determined hospitality education objectives.” In food service one way to achieve this integrated learning curve is to have the students prepare foods and then consume them. Heiman suggests this will quickly illustrate to students the rights and wrongs of food preparation. Another way is to have students integrating the academic program with feeding the university population. Your author offers more illustrations on similar principles. Heiman takes special care in characterizing the banquet and catering portions of the food service industry, and he offers empirical data to support the descriptions. It is in these areas, banquet and catering, that Heiman says special attention is needed to produce qualified students to those fields. This is the real focus of the discussion, and it is in this venue that the remainder of the article is devoted. “Based on the perception that quality education is aided by implementing project assignments through the course of study in food service education, a model description can be implemented for a course in Catering and Banquet Management and Operations. This project model first considers the prioritized objectives of education and industry and then illustrates the successful merging of resources for mutual benefits,” Heiman sketches. The model referred to above is also the one aforementioned in the thesis statement at the beginning of the article. This model is divided into six major components; Heiman lists and details them. “The model has been tested through two semesters involving 29 students,” says Heiman. “Reaction by all participants has been extremely positive. Recent graduates of this type of program have received a sound theoretical framework and demonstrated their creative interpretation of this theory in practical application,” Heiman says in summation.

Leader-Member Exchange Paying Attention to Immediate Subordinate Pays Off

The author provides a brief review of leadership seen from the dyadic perspective, also known as leader-member exchange (LMX). This perspective focuses on the relationship between leaders and their immediate subordinates as individuals, with a review of the potential benefits and importance of this perspective. It is evident that hospitality leaders, managers, and supervisors and their organizations may gain much by paying attention to the relationship they have and that they develop with their immediate subordinates

Functional near infrared spectroscopy study of language, joint attention and motor skills

Near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is an emerging non-invasive optical neuro imaging technique that monitors the hemodynamic response to brain activation with ms-scale temporal resolution and sub-cm spatial resolution. The overall goal of my dissertation was to develop and apply NIRS towards investigation of neurological response to language, joint attention and planning and execution of motor skills in healthy adults. Language studies were performed to investigate the hemodynamic response, synchrony and dominance feature of the frontal and fronto-temporal cortex of healthy adults in response to language reception and expression. The mathematical model developed based on granger causality explicated the directional flow of information during the processing of language stimuli by the fronto-temporal cortex. Joint attention and planning/ execution of motor skill studies were performed to investigate the hemodynamic response, synchrony and dominance feature of the frontal cortex of healthy adults and in children (5-8 years old) with autism (for joint attention studies) and individuals with cerebral palsy (for planning/execution of motor skills studies). The joint attention studies on healthy adults showed differences in activation as well as intensity and phase dependent connectivity in the frontal cortex during joint attention in comparison to rest. The joint attention studies on typically developing children showed differences in frontal cortical activation in comparison to that in children with autism. The planning and execution of motor skills studies on healthy adults and individuals with cerebral palsy (CP) showed difference in the frontal cortical dominance, that is, bilateral and ipsilateral dominance, respectively. The planning and execution of motor skills studies also demonstrated the plastic and learning behavior of brain wherein correlation was found between the relative change in total hemoglobin in the frontal cortex and the kinematics of the activity performed by the participants. Thus, during my dissertation the NIRS neuroimaging technique was successfully implemented to investigate the neurological response of language, joint attention and planning and execution of motor skills in healthy adults as well as preliminarily on children with autism and individuals with cerebral palsy. These NIRS studies have long-term potential for the design of early stage interventions in children with autism and customized rehabilitation in individuals with cerebral palsy.

Why Most Biomedical Findings Echoed by Newspapers Turn Out to be False: The Case of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Context: Because positive biomedical observations are more often published than those reporting no effect, initial observations are often refuted or attenuated by subsequent studies. Objective: To determine whether newspapers preferentially report on initial findings and whether they also report on subsequent studies. Methods: We focused on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Using Factiva and PubMed databases, we identified 47 scientific publications on ADHD published in the 1990s and soon echoed by 347 newspapers articles. We selected the ten most echoed publications and collected all their relevant subsequent studies until 2011. We checked whether findings reported in each ‘‘top 10’’ publication were consistent with previous and subsequent observations. We also compared the newspaper coverage of the ‘‘top 10’’ publications to that of their related scientific studies. Results: Seven of the ‘‘top 10’’ publications were initial studies and the conclusions in six of them were either refuted or strongly attenuated subsequently. The seventh was not confirmed or refuted, but its main conclusion appears unlikely. Among the three ‘‘top 10’’ that were not initial studies, two were confirmed subsequently and the third was attenuated. The newspaper coverage of the ‘‘top 10’’ publications (223 articles) was much larger than that of the 67 related studies (57 articles). Moreover, only one of the latter newspaper articles reported that the corresponding ‘‘top 10’’ finding had been attenuated. The average impact factor of the scientific journals publishing studies echoed by newspapers (17.1 n = 56) was higher (p,0.0001) than that corresponding to related publications that were not echoed (6.4 n = 56). Conclusion: Because newspapers preferentially echo initial ADHD findings appearing in prominent journals, they report on uncertain findings that are often refuted or attenuated by subsequent studies. If this media reporting bias generalizes to health sciences, it represents a major cause of distortion in health science communication.

The Effects of Attention Bias Modification Training on Cognitive Biases Perceived Threats in Children with Anxiety

It has been found in research that children and adults with anxiety have a bias toward interpreting ambiguous situations as threatening. This bias is thought to consequently maintain many symptoms of anxiety. An emergent computer treatment system called Attention Bias Modification Training (ABMT) has been used to try to reduce this bias. It is essential to understand whether this bias can be reduced with ABMT because of its feasibility and cost effective nature of treatment. In the current study, interpretation bias is measured using the Children's Opinions of Everyday Life Events (COELE). The ABMT treatment is given to children once a week for an hour and their answers to the COELE are recorded before and after treatment. The recorded procedures are transcribed by undergraduate students working at the Child Anxiety and Phobia lab, and then scored. Each of the situations of the COELE are rated 0 being neutral or 1 threatening interpretation of the situation. The hypothesis is that ABMT will reduce the negative interpretation bias in children over the course of 4 weeks of treatment. The study is still in the collection and transcription of data phase, and will expect to have analytical conclusions in the start of spring 2015.

Mother-Infant Reciprocity and the Development of Joint Attention in 12 Month Old Infants

Social contingency is the ability to connect social stimuli, such as those behaviors performed by oneself and those performed by others. Detecting social contingencies occurs by means of reciprocity through shared experiences with others. Reciprocity denotes a circumstance in which two individuals participate in a collaborative exchange, and is distinguished from an event in which two individuals engage in separate, unrelated activities. Specifically, reciprocity incorporates joint attention (JA), which occurs when two individuals simultaneously and visually attend to the same item. JA is facilitated by gazing and pointing, whereby one individual initiates the action and the second individual follows suit by, for example, gaze-following. However, little is known about the role the mother may play in the development of JA. The purpose of our study was to investigate social contingency between mothers and infants engaging in dyadic interactions. Thirty-three 12-month-old typically developing infants (M = 12.2, SD = .19; N = 19 males) were filmed for 10 minutes during free play with their mothers and toys provided by an experimenter. Reciprocity was measured by coding mother-infant interactions when a precise chain of events occurred: (1) mother initiated a bid by introducing a toy/activity or request to the infant, (2) infant accepted the bid/request by engaging in play with the given toy/activity, and (3) mother persisted by continuing to engage in play with said toy/activity. We computed a Pearson Correlation to assess the relation between the mothers’ initiations of JA and their infants’ responses to JA. We found a moderately positive correlation between the two variables (r= 0.37, p<.05). Our findings suggest that reciprocity, an important component of social relationships, during parent-infant dyads may serve as a scaffold for joint attention abilities, which have been linked to social and language development.