Collaborative Research: The Use of Narrative Enhancement to Facilitate Children's Productivity in Eyewitness Testimony

关于儿童目击能力的研究一再证明了暗示性提问和自由回忆报告的高准确性的有害影响。然而，儿童的自由回忆往往是不完整的，需要新的访谈方法来提高儿童的生产力，而不增加污染。在目前的研究中，我们正在研究几个非常简单和容易实现的面试官行为是否能做到这一点。这些行为包括祈使语（例如，说出孩子的名字），这能集中孩子的注意力；还有反向渠道的话语（例如，在回答后说“嗯哼”），这表明面试官很注意。这些行为在法庭访谈的实地调查中都有观察到。然而，由于不知道基本事实，并且在自然环境中无法控制这些行为的使用，因此这些行为对生产力和准确性的实际影响是未知的。我们正在实验测试这些访谈者行为（统称为促进性话语）对4- 9岁儿童对一个突出事件（即涉及轻微违规（玩具破损）的实验室活动）的描述的影响。我们的程序将允许我们确定促进性话语是否会增加儿童对过去经历的报告，特别是那些包含一些负面成分的经历，以及促进性话语的好处是否会随着年龄的增长而变化，例如，当儿童在没有他人帮助的情况下变得更有能力讲述过去的事件时。总的来说，我们的项目将在发展心理学和法律的界面上推进科学和政策。如何最好地从疑似儿童受害者那里获得详细的叙述性报告，仍然存在相当大的不确定性。这种不确定性很大程度上归因于缺乏对实地实践中常见的采访者行为的实验调查。通过对潜在的关键面试官行为进行系统的评估，我们将能够减少这种不确定性，从而提高对真正受虐待儿童的识别，并提高法律体系在涉及虐待指控的案件中追求正义的能力。

Research concerning children's eyewitness abilities has repeatedly demonstrated harmful effects of suggestive questioning and superior accuracy of free-recall reports. However, children's free recall is often incomplete, and new interview methods are needed that enhance children's productivity without increasing contamination. In the current research, we are examining whether several very simple and easily implemented interviewer behaviors can do just this. Such behaviors include vocatives (e.g., stating the child's name), which focus the child's attention; and back-channel utterances (e.g., following responses with "uh huh"), which convey interviewer attentiveness. These behaviors have been observed in field research of forensic interviews. However, because ground truth is not known and there is no control over the use of the behaviors in naturalistic settings, the actual effects of these behaviors on productivity and accuracy are unknown. We are experimentally testing the effects of these interviewer behaviors, collectively referred to as facilitative utterances, on 4- to 9-year olds' descriptions of a salient event, namely a laboratory activity involving a minor transgression (toy breakage). Our procedures will allow us to determine whether facilitative utterances increase how much children report about prior experiences, particularly those that include some negative components, and whether the benefits of facilitative utterances vary with age, for example, as children become more competent recounting past events without assistance from others. Overall, our project will advance science and policy at the interface of developmental psychology and the law. Considerable uncertainty remains about how best to elicit detailed narrative reports from suspected child victims. Much of this uncertainty is attributable to a lack of experimental investigation of interviewer behaviors commonly observed in field practices. By conducting a systematic assessment of potentially critical interviewer behaviors, we will be able to decrease some of this uncertainty, thereby improving the identification of truly abused children and the legal system's ability to pursue justice in cases involving alleged abuse.