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The effectiveness of supermarket posters in helping to find missing children

James Michael Lampinen1, Jack Arnal, Jason L Hicks

  • 1University of Arkansas, USA. lampinen@uark.edu

Journal of Interpersonal Violence
|May 9, 2008
PubMed

Insights

Supermarket posters for missing children are not very effective. Most shoppers do not look at the posters, and recognition memory for the children shown is no better than chance.

Area of Science:

  • Psychology
  • Applied Criminology

Background:

  • Missing children are a significant societal concern.
  • Supermarkets are frequently used to display missing children posters at exits.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To evaluate the effectiveness of posters in finding missing children.
  • To assess customer attention and recognition memory for missing children posters.

Main Methods:

  • Posters of 8 missing children were displayed in a grocery store.
  • Customer surveys and recognition memory tests were administered.
  • Data on attention to posters and recall of children's images were collected.

Main Results:

  • Most customers acknowledged the importance of the missing children issue.
  • A majority reported not looking at or only briefly viewing the posters.
  • Recognition memory for depicted children was not significantly above chance.

Conclusions:

  • Current poster placement strategies in supermarkets have limited effectiveness.
  • Improvements are needed to increase attention and recognition of missing children posters.

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