Origin and Development of the "Other-Race Effect" in Children

儿童“异族效应”的起源与发展

• 批准号: 0130826
• 负责人: John Brigham
• 金额: $ 25.76万
• 依托单位: Florida State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2002
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2002-06-15 至 2005-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0130826&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Origin; Development; Other; Race; Effect

Analyses of "wrongful convictions," cases in which subsequent evidence (e.g., DNA analyses) has indicated that the convicted person was not guilty of the crime, have found that incorrect eyewitness identifications have led to more convictions of innocent people than have all other factors combined. Prior research has shown that a key factor on eyewitness mistakes is the tendency for people to recognize faces of a different race more poorly than faces of their own race; this phenomenon has been called the "other-race effect." Research with adults has clearly demonstrated the pervasiveness of this effect, but little is known about when this effect originates or what its course of development may be through childhood. This gap in knowledge is addressed in the current project by examining the effect in young African Americans and Whites at four developmental levels (second graders, sixth graders, tenth graders, and college sophomores). The goals of the project are to understand how the effect develops across childhood, and whether and how it can be changed. In addition to yielding important basic information about human perception and memory, these studies should provide useful information to those who work with children as witnesses in the criminal and civil justice systems. The findings should be particularly relevant to those who formulate policies about how best to obtain, interpret, and utilize eyewitness memory reports from children of various ages.

分析“错误定罪”，随后的证据（例如，DNA分析）表明，被定罪的人是无罪的罪行，发现不正确的目击者指认导致更多的无辜者被定罪，而不是所有其他因素的总和。先前的研究表明，目击者错误的一个关键因素是人们倾向于识别不同种族的面孔比识别自己种族的面孔更差;这种现象被称为“其他种族效应”。“对成年人的研究清楚地表明了这种效应的普遍性，但对这种效应何时产生或其在童年时期的发展过程知之甚少。在知识上的这种差距是解决在当前的项目中，通过检查在四个发展水平（二年级，六年级，十年级和大学生）的影响，在年轻的非洲裔美国人和白人。该项目的目标是了解这种影响如何在整个童年时期发展，以及它是否以及如何改变。这些研究除了提供关于人类感知和记忆的重要基本信息外，还应向在刑事和民事司法系统中从事儿童证人工作的人提供有用的信息。这些发现应该特别与那些制定政策的人有关，这些政策是关于如何最好地获得，解释和利用来自不同年龄儿童的目击者记忆报告。