Divergent viewpoints about lineups: What policy for the identification of criminals?

IntroductionA fair lineup is needed to maximize the likelihood of correct identification of the criminal and minimize the likelihood of mistaken identification. Fairness depends on distractor plausibility and the lineup method (i.e., simultaneous or sequential).ObjectiveThis paper aims to evaluate the advantages and the limits of distractor plausibility and the presentation of the lineup members, and thus show the best method to ensure correct identification.MethodOur conclusions are based on the major experiments published in the field and on recent debates in the scientific community.Results and conclusionIn addition to distractor plausibility, our conclusions, which are based on previous work by Malpass (2006), suggest that sequential and simultaneous lineups are complementary rather than opposed. The paper argues that two tools specifically designed for and adapted to particular situations are better than one.     

Exploring predictors of organizational identification: Moderating role of trust on the associations between empowerment,organizational support,and identification

The purpose of this study is to explore the associations among psychological empowerment, perceived organizational support (POS), trust in supervisor, and organizational identification. In particular, this study posits that trust in supervisor moderates the relationships between psychological empowerment, POS, and organizational identification. Blue collar employees from the shipping industry in Turkey are selected as the main target of this study. A total of 518 questionnaires were analysed. Results indicate that all the dimensions of psychological empowerment, namely goal internalization, perceived competence, and perceived control, POS, cognition- and affect-based trust in supervisor are positively associated with organizational identification. Moderation analysis shows that cognition-based trust in supervisor moderates the relationships between perceived competence, perceived control, and organizational identification, whereas affect-based trust in supervisor moderates the relationships between goal internalization, POS, and organizational identification. Furthermore, some practical implications are also discussed.     

The impact of multiculturalism on immigrant helping

We examined how immigrants' acculturation style (multiculturalism versus assimilation) affects the host society's willingness to help immigrants. The results from this experiment supported our expectations in showing that multiculturalism triggered less immigrant helping than assimilation, but only among high national identifiers. In addition, immigrants pursuing multiculturalism were perceived as less warm than those pursuing assimilation, and perceived warmth mediated the interaction effect of identification and acculturation style on helping. Whereas help could improve immigrants' integration into the host society and reduce the degree to which the latter views immigrants as threatening, these results ironically demonstrate that immigrants who are viewed as most threatening receive the least amount of help.     

Familiarity,Cued and Free Odor Identification and Their Association with Cognitive Functioning in Middle Aged and Older Adults

ABSTRACT

The aim of the present study was to examine the association between familiarity of odors, cued and free odor identification performance and cognitive function in elderly adults. It was further investigated how age affects performance on the various odor tasks. A third aim was to investigate the role of familiarity in explaining performance on the free identification task. One hundred and thirty-six participants (aged 45–79 years) with normal olfactory sensitivity were assessed with the Scandinavian Odor Identification Test (SOIT) and standardized tests of cognitive function. Familiarity did not correlate with any measure of cognitive function, while verbal identification performance was associated with several cognitive measures, although correlations were modest. In this sample, free odor identification was affected by increasing age to a marginally larger extent than cued identification performance and familiarity ratings. The results suggest that the different olfactory tasks involve different levels of cognitive processing.     

How Children Experience the Assets that Support their Learning

The study, on which this article is based, explored the ways in which primary school children in an urban (city centre) setting experience the assets and resources that support their learning. The researchers used a qualitative phenomenological research design incorporating an interpretive and constructivist perspective. The study was conducted in a primary school in Tshwane, Gauteng province, South Africa. The participants were eight African female participants in Grades 5–7 who had overcome extrinsic barriers to learning. They participated in a focus group discussion during which the relevant and natural units of significant statements were listed (horizontalisation) and structured into central clusters of meanings. Textural themes (what) and structural themes (how) were identified. The study found that human resource assets were central to the process of connecting a variety of assets that supported learning. The study also found a significant compound effect of assets, for example increased connected assets had a noteworthy additional positive effect on learning support. The identified assets interrelatedly mobilised other assets (textural findings) on one of five levels (structural findings: physical assets, social assets, safety assets, esteem assets and self-actualisation) in various systems and contexts that contribute to learning support. This article elaborates on these findings.     

Repetition in visual word identification: Benefits and costs

University students performed lexical tasks with visually presented target words after the presentation of an identical or unrelated prime, at short (80–120?ms) or longer (410–710?ms) prime–target stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs). Experiment 1 showed perceptual identification benefits in vocal responding at a short SOA that were reduced (accuracy) or reversed (latency) at a longer SOA. Experiment 2 showed a transition from a repetition benefit to a cost over 3 SOAs in a target-masked version of the lexical decision task (LDT; target displayed for only 141?ms). In Experiment 3 the repetition cost was replicated at a 530-ms SOA in the LDT with masked targets, but a repetition benefit was observed in the conventional LDT (target displayed until response). The dependence of repetition costs on target masking is more consistent with biases based on episodic confusions than refractoriness of lexical representations.     

Parafoveal processing across different lexical constituents in Chinese reading

We report a boundary paradigm eye movement experiment to investigate whether the linguistic category of a two-character Chinese string affects how the second character of that string is processed in the parafovea during reading. We obtained clear preview effects in all conditions but, more importantly, found parafoveal-on-foveal effects whereby a nonsense preview of the second character influenced fixations on the first character. This effect occurred for monomorphemic words, but not for compound words or phrases. Also, in a word boundary demarcation experiment, we demonstrate that Chinese readers are not always consistent in their judgements of which characters in a sentence constitute words. We conclude that information regarding the combinatorial properties of characters in Chinese is used online to moderate the extent to which parafoveal characters are processed.     

The role of analogy in reports of presque vu: Does reporting the presque vu state signal the near retrieval of a source analogy?

Prior research with four-part analogies suggests that people can detect that a novel word pair (e.g., “beaver:dam”) maps analogically onto a pair in memory (e.g., “robin:nest”) despite being unable to retrieve the pair from memory that is driving that detection. The present study demonstrates that the same type of detection during retrieval failure can occur when a story is used at test to illustrate a common aphorism that failed to be retrieved from an earlier list (e.g., “The squeaky wheel gets the grease” or “A watched pot never boils”). Given that prior research has suggested that analogy is related to insight, the present study also examined if such analogical detection during retrieval failure is related to the sense of presque vu, which is a term used to describe the subjective sense of an impending insight or discovery. Reports of presque vu during retrieval failure were associated with higher familiarity ratings. Participants were most likely to report presque vu after failing to identify the aphorism on the first attempt but before succeeding on the second attempt (relative to succeeding on the first attempt or failing altogether on both attempts). Additionally, instances of successful identification on the second attempt after a failed first attempt were more likely when presque vu was reported than when it was not. These patterns suggest that reports of presque vu may indicate impending retrieval of as yet unretrieved relevant information. However, instances of successful second attempt identification after initial failure occurred too infrequently to fully examine whether analogical resemblance to an unretrieved studied aphorism interacted with these patterns.     

Confidence and accuracy of lineup selections and rejections: Postdicting rejection accuracy with confidence

Correlation and calibration approaches show meaningful, positive confidence-accuracy relations for witnesses making selections from lineups, but rarely for rejections (Brewer and Wells, 2006, Sauerland and Sporer, 2009). This disparity may reflect the difference between selecting a single photo versus rejecting a set of photos. Participants (N = 101) in two experiments made selections from and rejections of lineups in situations requiring either a single confidence rating about a single face (typical of “choosers”) or a single confidence rating about multiple faces (typical of “nonchoosers”). Mean confidence ratings were significantly higher for accurate versus inaccurate decisions for both selections and rejections when decisions were based on single faces. Single decisions about multiple faces produced no significant difference in confidence between correct and incorrect rejections but a significant difference for selections.     

Being Chinese or being Scottish: National identification and intergroup attitudes of British born Chinese children

This study explored the age differences in national identification, and intergroup attitudes among British born Chinese (BBC) living in Scotland. Participants comprised 70 children in three age groups (8, 11 and 14 years). The study included three tasks: task 1 investigated children's national self-categorization; task 2 examined children's national self-identification; task 3 explored children's perception of the positive and negative traits of Chinese and Scottish people across the age groups (using card-sorting tasks). The results indicated that BBC children identified their national identity as Scottish, however, it varied with age and national contexts. Most BBC children identified themselves as both Chinese and Scottish but they attributed significantly more positive traits to Chinese than to Scottish people and showed significantly more liking for Chinese people than Scottish. The study concludes that BBC children experience a dual identity in which different components are integrated.