Collaborative Research: The Impact of Cuing on Children's Eyewitness Testimony and Source Monitoring

合作研究：暗示对儿童目击者证词和来源监测的影响

• 批准号: 0718856
• 负责人: Jason Dickinson
• 金额: $ 11.72万
• 依托单位: Montclair State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2007-08-01 至 2011-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0718856&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Impact; Cuing; Children

AbstractCollaborative Research: The Impact of Cuing on Children's EyewitnessTestimony and Source Monitoring Each year, child protection workers, police officers, and staff members at child advocacy centers interview tens of thousands of children who are believed to be victims or witnesses of crimes. Because sexual abuse cases are especially difficult to investigate, efforts to develop interviewing techniques for child witnesses have focused on procedures for eliciting accurate information about inappropriate sexual contact. Currently, two forensic interviewing procedures dominate public policy: One emphasizes techniques for transferring control of the conversation to children and eliciting information with free-recall prompts, whereas the other cues children to report abuse experiences with body drawings and direct (specific) questions about touching. Protocols that emphasize free recall are often viewed as pro-defense (because these guidelines help prevent false allegations by discouraging questions containing specific event details), whereas protocols that emphasize interviewing aids and specific questions are viewed as pro-prosecution (because many professionals believe these procedures help children disclose abuse). The current controversy about how to interview children stems mainly from a widespread but untested belief that conversational techniques that minimize false reports also reduce disclosures of embarrassing events. Supporting this belief is the well-known finding that encouraging children to describe events in their own words results in fewer false reports than cuing children with direct questions, but that a series of direct questions elicits more detailed narratives. However, previous studies that found benefits from cuing children's memories generally asked children to describe events that were known to have occurred, the topic of discussion was identified, and interviewers presented memory cues after children had already described events in their own words. These studies do not, however, tell us whether cuing early in an interview results in more accurate or complete testimony when the veracity of allegations is unknown or when children may have been exposed to misinformation about what actually happened. In fact, two well-researched phenomena-retrieval-induced forgetting and encoding specificity-demonstrate that cues often suppress memory for contextual information and decrease the number of items recalled. For example, adults in a pilot study who viewed photographs to help them recall sentences recalled fewer sentences than adults who simply recalled the sentences did, and these adults also were less likely to recall which of two individuals had provided the sentences. The current project consists of two studies that will determine how cuing descriptions of experienced events with line drawings and specific questions influences the quality of information provided by children who are 4 to 9 years of age. Study 1 will explore the practical significance of cuing with a well-researched paradigm in which children experience an engaging event, are exposed to false information about that event, and receive interviews that mimic the two major styles. Study 2 is a basic memory study that will maximize the ability to detect developmental changes in the impact of cuing. Both studies will measure the effects of cuing on memory for events and source information, which is information about where children initially learned the information. Results will contribute to understanding basic memory mechanisms by documenting how cuing influences children's recall, guide future research on eyewitness testimony by illuminating the strengths and limitations of two interviewing styles, and impact state- and national-level training for professionals who investigate crimes against children and other vulnerable groups.

合作研究：线索对儿童眼睛的影响目击证据和来源监控每年，儿童保护工作者、警察和儿童倡导中心的工作人员都会采访数以万计的儿童，他们被认为是犯罪的受害者或证人。由于性虐待案件特别难以调查，为儿童证人开发面谈技术的努力主要集中在获取有关不正当性接触的准确信息的程序上。目前，两种法医面谈程序主导着公共政策：一种强调将对话的控制权转移给儿童并通过自由回忆提示获取信息的技术，而另一种则提示儿童报告身体绘画和直接(具体)触摸问题的虐待经历。强调自由回忆的协议通常被视为支持辩护(因为这些指南通过阻止包含特定事件细节的问题来帮助防止虚假指控)，而强调面谈辅助工具和特定问题的协议则被视为支持起诉(因为许多专业人士认为这些程序有助于儿童披露虐待行为)。目前关于如何采访儿童的争议主要源于一种广为流传但未经检验的信念，即尽量减少虚假报道的对话技巧也会减少尴尬事件的披露。支持这一观点的是一个众所周知的发现，即鼓励儿童用自己的语言描述事件会导致较少的虚假报告，而不是暗示儿童提出直接问题，但一系列直接问题会引发更详细的叙述。然而，之前发现暗示儿童记忆有益的研究通常会要求儿童描述已知发生的事件，确定讨论的主题，并在儿童用自己的语言描述事件后，采访者提供记忆线索。然而，这些研究并没有告诉我们，当指控的真实性未知时，或者当儿童可能接触到关于实际发生的错误信息时，在面谈的早期暗示是否会产生更准确或更完整的证词。事实上，两种经过充分研究的现象--提取诱发遗忘和编码特异性--表明，线索通常会抑制对上下文信息的记忆，减少回忆的项目数量。例如，在一项初步研究中，观看照片帮助回忆句子的成年人比只回忆句子的成年人记住的句子更少，这些成年人也不太可能记住两个人中的哪一个提供了句子。目前的项目由两项研究组成，这两项研究将确定用线条画和具体问题来暗示对经历过的事件的描述如何影响4至9岁儿童提供的信息质量。研究一将通过一个经过充分研究的范式来探索暗示的实际意义，在这个范式中，儿童经历一个引人入胜的事件，接触到关于该事件的错误信息，并接受模仿这两种主要风格的访谈。研究2是一项基本的记忆研究，它将最大限度地提高检测线索影响的发展变化的能力。这两项研究都将衡量线索对事件记忆和来源信息的影响，来源信息是关于儿童最初从哪里获得信息的信息。结果将有助于通过记录线索如何影响儿童的回忆来理解基本的记忆机制，通过阐明两种面谈方式的优点和局限性来指导未来对目击者证词的研究，并影响对调查针对儿童和其他弱势群体的犯罪的专业人员的州和国家一级的培训。