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

【摘要】合作研究：线索对儿童目击者证词和来源监控的影响每年，儿童保护工作者、警察和儿童权益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，为儿童证人发展面谈技术的努力集中于获取关于不适当性接触的准确信息的程序。目前，两种法医采访程序主导着公共政策：一种强调将谈话控制权移交给儿童的技术，并通过自由回忆提示来引出信息，而另一种则通过身体图画和关于触摸的直接（具体）问题来提示儿童报告虐待经历。强调自由回忆的协议通常被视为有利于辩护（因为这些指导方针通过不鼓励包含具体事件细节的问题来防止虚假指控），而强调采访辅助和具体问题的协议被视为有利于起诉（因为许多专业人士认为这些程序有助于儿童披露虐待）。目前关于如何采访儿童的争论主要源于一种广泛但未经验证的信念，即对话技巧可以最大限度地减少虚假报道，也可以减少尴尬事件的披露。支持这一观点的是一个著名的发现，即鼓励孩子用自己的话描述事件比用直接问题提示孩子更少产生错误的报告，但一系列直接问题引出了更详细的叙述。然而，先前发现提示儿童记忆的好处的研究通常要求儿童描述已知发生的事件，讨论的主题是确定的，采访者在儿童用自己的话描述事件后提供记忆线索。然而，这些研究并没有告诉我们，当指控的真实性未知时，或者当孩子们可能接触到关于实际发生的事情的错误信息时，在采访的早期提示是否会导致更准确或更完整的证词。事实上，两种被充分研究过的现象——检索诱发遗忘和编码特异性——表明线索常常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，观看照片来帮助他们回忆句子的成年人比单纯回忆句子的成年人回忆的句子要少，而且这些成年人也不太可能回忆起两个人中谁提供了这些句子。目前的项目包括两项研究，它们将确定用线条画和具体问题对经历事件的线索描述如何影响4至9岁儿童所提供信息的质量。研究1将通过一个经过充分研究的范式来探索线索的实际意义，在这个范式中，儿童经历一个引人入胜的事件，暴露于关于该事件的错误信息，并接受模仿两种主要风格的访谈。研究2是一项基本的记忆研究，将最大限度地提高检测线索影响下的发育变化的能力。这两项研究都将测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学到信息的信息。研究结果将有助于通过记录线索如何影响儿童回忆来理解基本记忆机制，通过阐明两种访谈方式的优势和局限性来指导未来对目击者证词的研究，并影响州和国家层面对调查针对儿童和其他弱势群体犯罪的专业人员的培训。

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.