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《恢复和再投资法》（公法111-5）资助的。对儿童进行法医访谈的协议应根据研究提供信息，但从据称的虐待受害者那里获得证据的访谈者经常使用未经研究的技术。这个项目研究了两个流行的程序：提示事件报告与身体轮廓和舒适的绘画，这是鼓励孩子画作为一个平静的活动的做法。这两种技术都是为了减轻焦虑儿童的压力，但明确的暗示和游戏可能会降低报告的准确性。这个项目的一个重要特点是包括父母和行为抑制的观察措施，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，这些好处在行为抑制儿童中尤其明显。参与的儿童（4至9岁）完成了一项研究，评估了两个采访协议如何影响目击者的准确性。这些孩子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，具体的，和源监控问题，而第二个包括线索回忆，自由回忆，和源监控问题。 研究1在现有的数据集上增加了行为抑制的措施，从而可以分析作为气质函数的准确性。研究2让孩子们接触一个新的事件，并在舒适绘画和不舒适绘画的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抑制和无抑制儿童的目击准确性。这些研究的结果将通过确定暗示和舒适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的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.