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表明，提示性提问的有害影响和自由回忆报告的高准确性。然而，儿童的自由回忆往往是不完整的，需要新的采访方法，在不增加污染的情况下提高儿童的生产力。在目前的研究中，我们正在研究几种非常简单和容易实现的面试官行为是否可以做到这一点。这类行为包括用呼语(如说出孩子的名字)来集中孩子的注意力，以及用逆声发声(如用“嗯”来回应)，用来传达面试官的注意力。这些行为在法医访谈的实地研究中已经被观察到。然而，由于基本事实是未知的，并且无法控制这些行为在自然环境中的使用，因此这些行为对生产率和准确性的实际影响是未知的。我们正在通过实验测试这些采访者的行为，统称为促进话语，对4至9岁儿童对显著事件的描述的影响，即涉及轻微违规(玩具损坏)的实验室活动。我们的程序将使我们能够确定促进性话语是否增加了儿童报告先前经历的程度，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随着年龄的变化而变化，例如，随着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。总体而言，我们的项目将在发展心理学和法律的界面上推动科学和政策的发展。对于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。这种不确定性在很大程度上是由于缺乏对现场实践中常见的面试者行为的实验调查。通过对潜在的关键面试者行为进行系统评估，我们将能够减少这种不确定性，从而提高识别真正受到虐待的儿童的能力，并提高法律系统在涉及涉嫌虐待的案件中伸张正义的能力。

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.