Collaborative Research: The Impact of Cuing and Comfort Drawing on the Eyewitness Testimony of Behaviorally Inhibited and Uninhibited Children

该奖项是根据2009年复苏和再投资法（公法111-5）资助的。对儿童进行法医采访的规程应通过研究得到通知，但从据称的虐待受害者那里获得证据的采访者经常使用未经研究的技术。这个项目研究了两种流行的程序：用身体轮廓提示事件报告和舒适绘画，这是一种鼓励孩子们把画画作为一种平静活动的做法。这两种方法都是为了减轻焦虑儿童的压力，但明确的暗示和玩耍可能会降低报告的准确性。这个项目的一个重要特征是包含了父母和行为抑制的观察测量，这是一种与很少自发言语相关的气质特征。如果身体轮廓或绘画活动鼓励更详细和准确的证词，其好处在行为受到抑制的儿童中应该特别明显。参与研究的儿童（4至9岁）完成了一项研究，评估了两种访谈协议如何影响目击者的准确性。孩子们被暴露在目标事件中，反复被告知没有经历过的事件，并被随机分配到采访协议中。一个协议包括自由回忆、特定回忆和源监视问题，而第二个协议包括提示回忆、自由回忆和源监视问题。研究1在现有数据集上增加了行为抑制的测量，从而允许分析作为气质函数的准确性。研究2让儿童接触一个新的事件，并在舒适图和无舒适图条件下进行最后的访谈。因此，本研究评估了记忆提示的长期影响，并确定了分散注意力的活动如何影响行为受抑制和不受限制的儿童的目击准确性。这些研究的结果将通过确定线索和安慰绘图对儿童证词和来源监测准确性的影响来推进法医访谈实践。该项目还将通过揭示气质测量是否有助于评估面试技巧在情感和认知后果之间的权衡，来指导未来的研究。

This award is funded under the Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). Protocols for conducting forensic interviews of children should be informed by research, but interviewers who obtain evidence from alleged victims of abuse frequently use unresearched techniques. This project examines two popular procedures: cuing event reports with body outlines and comfort drawing, which is the practice of encouraging children to draw as a calming activity. Both techniques are intended to take pressure off anxious children, but explicit cuing and play could reduce the accuracy of reports. An important feature of this project is the inclusion of parent and observational measures of behavioral inhibition, a temperamental trait associated with little spontaneous speech. If body outlines or drawing activities encourage more detailed and accurate testimony, the benefits should be especially evident among behaviorally inhibited children. Participating children (ages 4- to 9-years) completed a study that evaluated how two interviewing protocols impact eyewitness accuracy. The children were exposed to target events, repeatedly told about nonexperienced events, and randomly assigned to interviewing protocols. One protocol included free-recall, specific, and source-monitoring questions, whereas the second included cued-recall, free-recall, and source-monitoring questions. Study 1 adds measures of behavioral inhibition to the existing data set, thereby permitting analyses of accuracy as a function of temperament. Study 2 exposes children to a new event and conducts final interviews in comfort drawing and no comfort drawing conditions. This study therefore evaluates the long-term impact of memory cuing and determines how a distracting activity influences the eyewitness accuracy of behaviorally inhibited and uninhibited children. Results from these studies will advance forensic interviewing practice by determining the impact of cuing and comfort drawing on children's testimonial and source monitoring accuracy. The project will also guide future research by revealing whether temperamental measures help evaluate tradeoffs between the emotional and cognitive consequences of interviewing techniques.