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: 0718889
• 负责人: Debra Poole
• 金额: $ 8.7万
• 依托单位: Central Michigan 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 2010-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0718889&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.

AbstractCollaborative Research：暗示对儿童视力的影响证词和来源监测每年，儿童保护工作者、警察和儿童宣传中心的工作人员都会采访成千上万名被认为是犯罪受害者或证人的儿童。由于性虐待案件特别难以调查，为儿童证人制定面谈技巧的努力集中在获取有关不适当性接触的准确信息的程序上。目前，两个法医访谈程序主导公共政策：一个强调的技术转移控制的谈话给儿童和引出信息与自由回忆提示，而其他线索儿童报告虐待经历与身体绘画和直接（具体）的问题触摸。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阻止包含特定事件细节的问题来防止虚假指控），而强调访谈辅助和特定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揭露虐待）。目前关于如何采访儿童的争论主要源于一种普遍但未经检验的信念，即尽量减少虚假报告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的错误报告，但一系列直接问题会产生更详细的叙述。然而，以前的研究发现提示儿童记忆的好处，通常要求儿童描述已知发生的事件，确定讨论的主题，并在儿童已经用自己的话描述事件后，采访者提出记忆线索。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，在访谈中早期提示是否会导致更准确或更完整的证词。事实上，两个研究得很好的现象-提取诱导的遗忘和编码特异性-表明线索常常抑制对上下文信息的记忆，减少回忆起的项目数量。例如，在一项试点研究中，观看照片以帮助他们回忆句子的成年人比简单回忆句子的成年人回忆起的句子更少，这些成年人也不太可能回忆起两个人中的哪一个提供了句子。目前的项目包括两项研究，将确定如何提示描述的经验丰富的事件与线条画和具体的问题，影响谁是4至9岁的儿童提供的信息的质量。研究1将探讨线索的实际意义，在一个良好的研究范式，儿童经历一个引人入胜的事件，暴露于错误的信息，该事件，并接受采访，模仿两种主要的风格。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的发展变化的能力。这两项研究都将测量线索对事件和源信息记忆的影响，源信息是关于儿童最初学习信息的信息。研究结果将有助于了解基本的记忆机制，记录线索如何影响儿童的回忆，指导未来的研究，通过阐明两种采访方式的优势和局限性的目击证人证词，并影响国家和国家一级的培训专业人员谁调查对儿童和其他弱势群体的犯罪。