Discriminating Between Children's Accounts of True and False Events

本研究探讨了几种有效性评估技术区分儿童的真实和虚假事件的帐户的效用。已经开发了几种技术来评估人们对事件的描述的有效性，但是这些技术中的大多数（a）是为成人而不是儿童开发的，（B）没有在儿童中进行广泛的测试，（c）没有纳入认知发展的相关原则。 这个项目测试的假设，与儿童，有效性评估技术是更成功的区分帐户的熟悉与不熟悉的事件之间的真实与虚假的事件。将进行两项研究，以测试几种有效性评估技术的效用，区分真实和虚假的事件与事件是熟悉或不熟悉的儿童。在第一项研究中，回忆的事件是实验性地介绍给参与者的。在第二项研究中，回忆起的事件是一个法医相关的事件--一个压力和侵入性的医疗程序，每个参与的孩子都经历过。这项研究将有助于认知发展理论的发展，适用于日常认知过程中广泛的记忆任务。更直接的是，拟议中的研究将帮助研究人员、法律的专业人员和社会服务代理人区分儿童对真实世界事件的描述，这些事件确实发生过，而不是没有发生过。

This research examines the utility of several validity assessment techniques for differentiating between children's accounts of true and false events. Several techniques have been developed to assess the validity of people's accounts of events, however most of these techniques (a) have been developed for use with adults and not children, (b) have not been extensively tested with children, and (c) do not incorporate relevant principles of cognitive development. This project tests the hypothesis that with children, validity assessment techniques are more successful at discriminating between accounts of familiar versus unfamiliar events than between accounts of true versus false events. Two studies will be conducted to test the utility of several validity assessment techniques for discriminating between true and false events with events that are familiar or unfamiliar to children. In the first study the event recalled is one experimentally introduced to the participants. In the second study the event recalled is a forensically relevant one -- a stressful and invasive medical procedure that has been experienced by each participating child or not. This research will contribute to the development of theories of cognitive development that apply to a wide range of memory tasks that operate during every-day cognition. More immediately, the proposed research will help researchers, legal professionals, and social service agents discriminate between children's accounts of real-world events that did occur versus those that did not occur.