Date of Graduation

5-2022

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Psychological Science

Advisor/Mentor

Lampinen, James M.

Committee Member

Chapman, Kate

Second Committee Member

Bouchillon, Brandon

Third Committee Member

Gipson, Nia

Abstract

Prospective person memory (PPM) is the process of remembering to perform some action after encountering a target individual, such as identifying and reporting a missing person sighting after viewing a missing person alert (Moore et al., 2021). Research has shown that identification rates generally tend to be low in simulated missing person studies (Lampinen & Moore, 2016b). The purpose of the current research is to determine how to improve missing person recognition rates. This project explores the potential effects of using videos in missing person reports as compared to using static images. We also consider differences between rigid and non-rigid facial movements. The study conformed to a 2 (Format: Video, Static) x 2 (Motion Type: Rigid, NonRigid) factorial design. Our hypotheses propose a) the video conditions will outperform the static image conditions, and b) non-rigid movements will yield greater identification accuracy than rigid movements. However, our hypotheses were not supported as our results showed the rigid static stimulus condition had the best identification performance overall. These findings provide future researchers insight into the process of encoding and recollecting human faces and provide authorities information on the stimuli that is most advantageous to use for real-world missing person cases.

Keywords

Prospective person memory; missing persons; unfamiliar facial recognition

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