Children's Comprehension and Memory of Event Sequences and Its Implications for Maltreatment Disclosure

儿童对事件序列的理解和记忆及其对虐待披露的影响

• 批准号: 10447007
• 负责人: Jessica Zoe Klemfuss
• 金额: $ 52.92万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-IRVINE
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-07-09 至 2026-03-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10447007
• 关键词: 12 year old; Adult; Age; Archives; Attention; Caregivers; Child; Child Abuse and Neglect; Child Welfare; Code; Cognition; Cognitive; Comprehension; Confusion; Data; Decision Making; Development; Diagnostic; Disclosure; Education; Elements; Empirical Research; Episodic memory; Event; Failure; Foundations; Goals; Guidelines; Health; Interview; Investigation; Knowledge; Laboratories; Laboratory Study; Lead; Legal; Light; Linguistics; Literature; Memory; Mental Health; Outcome; Participant; Positioning Attribute; Reporting; Research; Respondent; Risk; Role; Sampling; Secure; Services; Short-Term Memory; Testing; Time; Transcript; Variant; Work; age difference; age related; base; cognitive development; cognitive load; cognitive testing; contextual factors; convict; course sequence; discount; effectiveness testing; executive function; expectation; experience; experimental study; improved; innovation; interest; maltreatment; physical conditioning; psychologic; response; skills; stem

Project Summary/Abstract Child maltreatment is widely recognized as a serious threat to children's well-being and health. In maltreatment cases, the fidelity and credibility of the child witness/victim's report is often critical to securing an outcome in the best interest of the child. Eliciting information from children about the time-course and sequence of alleged maltreatment is central in these cases. The field of child interviewing is actively debating how best to question children about sequence in these cases with little existing empirical research on which to draw. There is a pressing need to identify strategies for obtaining information from even young, cognitively vulnerable children about the time course and sequence of alleged events. The proposed research will determine (1) how children are questioned about event sequence, and how they respond, across age, in maltreatment investigations (2) how differences in children's age, comprehension, working memory (WM), attention, and episodic memory may impact their abilities to accurately recall event sequence, and (3) how questions and child responses about sequence impact the likelihood that jury-eligible adults' will understand and believe children's allegations of abuse. These aims will be achieved via four proposed projects. In Project 1, the research team will code a sample of 581 legal transcripts to assess the sequencing content included in the prompts used to question child witnesses about their alleged maltreatment experiences and confusion in children's responses to the questions. Of particular interest is identifying instances of potential ambiguity for young children. In Projects 2 and 3, the research team will conduct laboratory studies with 644 4- to 12-year-olds to test the roles of cognition and context in children's responses to sequencing questions like those identified in the maltreatment case transcripts. Memory and response biases are predicted to be most pronounced with decreasing age and WM, and when attention is divided. In Project 3, the research team will examine children's responses to sequencing questions with potentially ambiguous interpretations. Their interpretations of the questions' intent are expected to vary with age and WM in predictable ways. Finally, in Project 4 the research team will examine mock juror interpretations of sequencing questions and children's responses. Participants from across the U.S. (N = 300) will rate the credibility of adult questioners and child respondents selected from Projects 1-3 and the accuracy with which mock jurors understand various sequencing questions and responses from our laboratory studies will be determined. The proposed work is innovative in that it represents a multi-dimensional approach to examining the cognitive, developmental, and contextual appropriateness of varying sequencing questions asked of children in maltreatment investigations and determining the extent to which these questions may impact just decisions in maltreatment cases. This topic has been surprisingly understudied given the substantial implications for understanding the foundations of children's sequential knowledge and memory, and for improving health-relevant legal outcomes in cases of child maltreatment.

项目总结/摘要 虐待儿童被广泛认为是对儿童福祉和健康的严重威胁。在虐待 在一些案件中，儿童证人/受害者报告的真实性和可信度往往是确保在 孩子的最大利益。从儿童那里获取关于所称暴力的时间进程和顺序的信息， 虐待是这些案件的核心。儿童访谈领域正在积极讨论如何最好地询问 在这些情况下，几乎没有现有的实证研究可以借鉴。有一个 迫切需要确定从甚至年幼的、认知能力脆弱的儿童那里获得信息的战略 关于事件发生的时间和顺序该研究将确定（1）儿童如何 被问及事件顺序，以及他们如何回应，跨年龄，在虐待调查（2） 儿童的年龄、理解力、工作记忆（WM）、注意力和情景记忆 可能会影响他们准确回忆事件顺序的能力，以及（3）问题和儿童的反应如何 关于顺序影响陪审团合格的成年人理解和相信儿童指控的可能性 虐待这些目标将通过四个拟议项目实现。在项目1中，研究小组将编写一个 581份法律的记录样本，以评估用于提问的提示中包含的测序内容 儿童证人关于他们被指控的虐待经历的陈述，以及儿童对 问题.特别令人感兴趣的是确定幼儿潜在的模糊性的实例。在项目2 研究小组将对644名4至12岁的儿童进行实验室研究， 认知和背景在儿童的反应排序的问题，如那些确定在虐待 案件记录记忆和反应偏差预计将随着年龄的下降而最明显， WM，注意力分散的时候。在项目3中，研究小组将研究儿童对以下问题的反应： 对可能存在歧义的问题进行排序。他们对问题意图的解释 预计将以可预测的方式随年龄和WM而变化。最后，在项目4中，研究小组将研究 模拟陪审员对顺序问题的解释和孩子们的回答。来自美国各地的参与者 （N = 300）将对从项目1-3中选出的成人提问者和儿童回答者的可信度进行评分， 模拟陪审员理解我们实验室的各种排序问题和回答的准确性 研究将确定。拟议的工作是创新的，因为它代表了一个多层面的方法， 来检验不同排序问题的认知、发展和上下文的适当性， 在虐待调查中询问儿童的问题，并确定这些问题在多大程度上 在虐待案件中影响公正的决定。这一主题一直令人惊讶的研究不足， 对理解儿童顺序知识和记忆基础的实质性影响， 改善虐待儿童案件中与健康有关的法律的结果。