Assessing the Role of Familiarity in Eyewitness Memory and Suggestibility

职务名称：评估熟悉的目击者的记忆和SuggestibilityAbstract的作用：在法律的案件涉及虐待或虐待的儿童受害者，嫌疑人往往是与谁的孩子是熟悉的人。然而，大多数关于儿童目击者记忆的科学研究都考察了关于短暂见过的陌生人的准确性和可识别性。有重要的理论依据表明，熟悉性和关系因素影响幼儿的记忆和理解能力。这个项目将调查孩子们准确叙述他们的经历的能力和他们揭露违法行为的意愿。这个项目将研究第一手的人的知识和社会情绪的影响对幼儿的目击报告的影响。采用实验方法，第一个研究关注儿童对一个熟悉的人与一个陌生人的事件的记忆和可理解性。第二项研究将调查儿童目击者记忆的个体预测因素，这些记忆是与他们的父亲一起经历的中度压力事件。对于这两个实验，智力，心理健康，家庭冲突和个性的评估将包括查明显着的关系。这项研究将提供有关儿童目击者记忆的新的理论驱动的科学知识，这反过来将告知法律的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。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得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的支持。

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.