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Running head: HOW DISPLAYING POSTERS SPEAK ON THE AWARENESS OF COLLEGE STUDENTS

How Displaying Posters in Public Environments Speak On the Awareness

Of College Students in Their Surroundings
Adrianna M. Boston, Gabrielle J. Dunlap, and Alexus K. Phoenix
University of North Carolina at Charlotte

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Running head: HOW DISPLAYING POSTERS SPEAK ON THE AWARENESS OF COLLEGE STUDENTS

Introduction
How effective are campaigns to place posters of missing children at the exits of grocery
stores? Do people remember the children they see in these posters? Do they even attend to the
posters when they are in the stores? It is important to maximize the effectiveness of such
approaches (Lampinen, Arnal, Hicks, 2009). Since 1996, Walmart Corporation has been posting
photographs of missing children which have led to the recovery of many children (Walmart,
2001). The problem of finding missing children has at least two components. The first problem is
missed opportunities for identification by members of the general public. A second problem
inherent in attempts to find missing children concerns false identifications. When a missing child
receives a lot of media attention, authorities receive a large number of leads that end up being
false alarms. They say the problem of finding missing children as a special case of event-based
prospective memory that is referred to as prospective person memory (Lampinen, Arnal, Hicks,
2009, 408).
Prospective person memory refers to situation where individuals are asked to be on the
lookout for wanted or missing individuals and then later encounter those individuals (Lampinen,
Peters, Gier, 2012, p.702). This form of memory is remembering to remember, or
remembering to perform an intended action. Going to your appointment to the doctors would be
an example of this. In a study using a prospective person, they find out that they are less likely
able to use outdated or age progressed pictures to help in the search for the missing children.
When putting the missing children at a table in front of the classroom, many people walked past
the table. Very few noticed the children and contacted someone (Lampinen, Peters, Gier, 2012).
When they used a poster to alert others about the missing children, more people were likely to
glance and see what it was they were looking for. However missing or wanted individuals may

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Running head: HOW DISPLAYING POSTERS SPEAK ON THE AWARENESS OF COLLEGE STUDENTS

be identified by people who have previously encountered them and later see an alert put out is
called retrospective person memory (Lampinen, Peters, Gier, 2012). Retrospective memory is
when content is remembered from the past. Both memories can help in finding wanted or
missing individuals. A dissociation between human neural systems that participate in the
encoding and later recognition of new memories for faces was demonstrated by measuring
memory task-related changes in regional and cerebral blood flow with positron emission
tomography. There was almost no overlap between the brains structures associated with these
memory functions. A region in the right hippocampus and adjacent cortex was activated during
memory encoding but not during recognition (Haxby, Ungerleider, Horwitz, Maisog, Rapoport,
Grady, 1996, p.922). Individuals have the ability to process faces at the time they occur, but have
a tendency to fail to recognize them later on. This contributes to the ineffectiveness of missing
persons posters in society.
Methods
Participants
Subjects in this study were UNC-Charlotte students, both male and female, of all races.
Those who participated were completely random and dependent upon the time, day and location
of the experiment. Participants were drawn from two separate locations, the Student Union and
Prospector. Data was taken beginning at 4 oclock in the Student Union, and 5 oclock in
Prospector on two consecutive days. From each of the two locations, 50 subjects were tested at
each, totaling 100.

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Running head: HOW DISPLAYING POSTERS SPEAK ON THE AWARENESS OF COLLEGE STUDENTS

Measures
At each location, those who successfully approached the new student and said hello
were counted as subjects who noticed their surroundings. Those who walked past the new
student without speaking were counted as subjects who did not notice their surroundings.
Procedures
Participants at each location were of random selection. Whoever walked by was asked to look at
the poster, and counted as a test subject. First, a poster was shown with the new students face to
everyone who walked by. Second, tallies were taken to keep track of how many subjects actually
participated. Third, tallies were taken of who acknowledged the new student just a few feet away from
where they were initially shown the poster. Fourth, candy was given to everyone who successfully
completed the experiment. Observations were taken throughout the experiment.

Results

STUDENT UNION RESULTS

Read the Sign and Noticed Surroundings
Read the Sign and Ignored Surroundings

36%
64%

The Student Union Results, the pie graph above, contains the percentages of the college
students at UNC-Charlotte that did and did not say hey for the experiment on November 5th at
4:00 P.M. 36% of the participants spoke to the new student and received candy for doing so.
The other 64% of the students did not say hey to the new student. Many of the students that

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Running head: HOW DISPLAYING POSTERS SPEAK ON THE AWARENESS OF COLLEGE STUDENTS

make up this percentage said hey to the person holding the poster. Some even walked past the
new student numerous times without ever speaking or realizing her. One of the male students
came up to us and said I would feel bad if it was me on the poster, and I was missing or
something because nobody would look to find me. In addition to that, a boy and girl came up
and said the experiment wouldnt work because people think all black people look the same.
Some of the participants had to take a second look at the poster before they could identify the
person. Another male student had a delayed reaction after sitting directly across from her and
said hey five minutes later.

PROSPECTOR RESULTS
Read the Sign and Noticed Surroundings
Read the Sign and Ignored Surroundings
16%

84%

The Prospector Results, the second pie graph, displays the data collected on November
6th at 5:00 p.m. of college students at UNC-Charlotte that did and did not say hey after they
were given directions to do so. The results show that only 16% said hey while the other 84%
did not. One boy stood right in front of the new student and said, I dont see her face. Another
guy looked all around Prospector and still didnt notice her sitting a few feet behind the girl
holding the poster. A group of guys sat right beside her without noticing her. One guy even
stared in her face for a while but then finally realized it was her and said hello. These results not
displayed on the graph are credible because of what was observed.

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Running head: HOW DISPLAYING POSTERS SPEAK ON THE AWARENESS OF COLLEGE STUDENTS

TOTAL OF BOTH LOCATIONS

Read the Sign and Noticed Surroundings
Read the Sign and Ignored Surroundings

26%
74%

Discussion
It could be concluded that most people are not aware of their surroundings. Many people
did not take the time to look around for the new student to say hey to, but rather focus more on
what they had to do. In the Student Union, many students would walk right by her when she was
not many feet behind the person holding the poster with her picture on it. Some students would
stop to look around then continue about their business; however, others thought nothing of what
was going on. They would listen to what the person holding the poster would say, then go back
to what they were doing. Many students seemed more interested in their phones, or getting to
their destination.
Prospector had the same type of people who were more focused on other things rather
than finding the new student. When the participants were told what to do, they seemed
uninterested in what was being said. Many people appeared to be headed to get food or find
friends that were sitting around. This is more than likely a reason numbers decreased drastically,
in addition to the time of day we were there.
Seeing how the study was only conducted on college students, a limitation was formed.
Data could have varied significantly if other participants, of different age groups, were tested as

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Running head: HOW DISPLAYING POSTERS SPEAK ON THE AWARENESS OF COLLEGE STUDENTS

well. Location was another limitation that was formed. This study was conducted on a college
campus in only two central areas. Data had the possibility to change if other locations were used,
or even a different location all together. Lastly, time was a limitation. Tests and observations
were taken at 4 oclock in the Student Union and a 5 oclock in Prospector, both of which are not
the peaks of day. If data was taken earlier or later in the day, results could have changed.
One thing that could have been done differently is changing the time and location of the
experiments to make it more effective. Changing those two factors could have allowed a more
accurate measure of how aware or unaware people are of their surroundings. Another factor that
could have influenced data and been changed is the poster. The poster could have been a more
descriptive representation of our experiment and that couldve assisted with the effectiveness and
accuracy. Participants could have also been of a wider range, particularly referring to age.

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Running head: HOW DISPLAYING POSTERS SPEAK ON THE AWARENESS OF COLLEGE STUDENTS
References

Haxby, J. V., Ungerleider, L. G., Horwitz, B., Maisog, J. M., Rapoport, S. I., & Grady, C. L.
(January 01, 1996). Face encoding and recognition in the human brain. Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 93, 2, 922-7.
Lampinen, J. M., Arnal, J., & Hicks, J. L. (January 01, 2009). The effectiveness of supermarket
posters in helping to find missing children. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 24, 3, 40623.
Lampinen, J. M., Peters, C. S., & Gier, V. S. (September 01, 2012). Power in numbers: The
effect of target set size on prospective person memory in an analog missing child
scenario. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 26, 5, 702-708.