Assessing the Role of Familiarity in Eyewitness Memory and Suggestibility

标题：评估熟悉度在目击者记忆和暗示能力中的作用摘要：在涉及虐待或虐待儿童受害者的法律案件中，被怀疑的人通常是儿童熟悉的人。然而，大多数关于儿童目击者记忆的科学研究都考察了与短暂见面的陌生人有关的准确性和暗示性。有重要的理论依据表明，熟悉性和人际关系因素影响幼儿的记忆和暗示性。这个项目将调查儿童准确叙述他们的经历的能力，以及他们揭露越轨行为的意愿。这个项目将考察第一手人的知识和社会情感对幼儿眼睛目击报告的影响。第一项研究采用实验方法，研究了儿童对熟人和陌生人事件的记忆力和暗示能力。第二项研究将调查儿童与父亲经历的中等压力事件的目击记忆的个体预测因素。在这两个实验中，都将包括对智力、心理健康、家庭冲突和个性的评估，以确定重要的关系。这项研究将提供关于儿童目击者记忆的新的理论驱动的科学知识，这反过来将告诉法律系统如何最好地平衡保护儿童免受伤害和保护成年人免受虚假指控。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Title: Assessing the Role of Familiarity in Eyewitness Memory and SuggestibilityAbstract: In legal cases involving child victims of abuse or maltreatment, the person under suspicion often is someone with whom the child is familiar. Yet, most scientific studies on child eyewitness memory examine accuracy and suggestibility concerning briefly-seen strangers. There are important theoretical reasons to indicate that familiarity and relationship factors affect young children's memory and suggestibility. This project will investigate children's abilities to recount accurately their experiences and their willingness to reveal transgressions. This project will examine the effects of first-hand person knowledge and socioemotional influences on young children's eye witness reports. Employing an experimental approach, the first study concerns children's memory and suggestibility for an event involving a familiar person versus a stranger. The second study will investigate individual predictors of children's eyewitness memory for a moderately stressful event experienced with their father. For both experiments, assessments of intelligence, mental health, family conflict, and personality will be included to pinpoint significant relations. This research will provide new theoretically driven scientific knowledge about children's eyewitness memory, which in turn will inform the legal system how best to balance protecting children from victimization and protecting adults from false accusations.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.