Ceci & Bruck Flashcards
What are some examples of high-profile abuse trials?
- Kern county child abuse case (1982): coercive interviewing technique used on children as witnesses, conviction was overturned in in 1996
- Country walk nursery (1984): coercive interviewing of children helped secure conviction
- wee care nursery school (1985): sentence of 47 years was overturned after 5 years on appeal
What did this review paper suggest?
- 36 page review of relevant research on child suggestibility
- followed by extensive review of 20th century research: dangers of repeated leading questions, advantages of free recall over closed questions
- re-emergence of interest in suggestibility in 1970s: increased admissibility of expert psychological testimony, social scientists want to do research relevant to the time, increased number of crimes involving child victims in courts, continuation of research on adult suggestibility
What was involved in King and Yuille (1987)?
- participants: 6, 9, 11 and 16 year olds
- procedure: seated in room when somebody came in to water plants, stranger looked at clock and indicated it was late, children interviewed with leading questions (e.g. did he wear a watch? didn’t have one)
results: age 6 are more suggestible than 9-16 and recalled less detail
What was involved in Flin, Boon, Knox and Bull (1992)?
- participants: 6-year-olds, 10-year-olds and adults
- procedure: exposed to an argument during a lecture on foot hygiene, half questioned 1 day later, the other half 5 months later. 3 questions contained erroneous suggestions
- results: responses were highly accurate in both interviews and for all ages, only a few participants accepted the erroneous information
What are the cognitive factors involved?
- trace theory: verbatim trace (surface detail), gist trace (general meaning), developmental differences in the reliance on each trace type
- source monitoring theory: suggestibility, developmental differences in source monitoring
What are the social factors involved?
- children think adults are credible and competent sources
- children try to answer adults questions even if bizarre
- children often change their answer if asked repeatedly, understand repetition as sign they got it wrong while adults don’t assume this
What are the social/cognitive mechanisms?
-why children may lie: to avoid punishment/embarrassment, to keep a promise, to protect others, for personal gain, to sustain a game
What are the biological mechanisms?
- child witnesses typically report on stressful situations
- statements often provided in stressful environments too
- relationship between arousal/stress and memory
What were the conclusions of the review paper?
- significant age differences in suggestibility
- children can be good witnesses but are more suggestible
What impact did the findings have on memory and suggestibility?
-Goodman et al (1994): non-maltreated children’s memories for stressful events (medical procedure involving urethral catheterization). main predictors of inaccuracies and suggestibility were lack of understanding of the event, lack of parental communication about the event, children’s emotional reaction to the event
What was the impact on forensic interviews?
- how to increase true reports and decrease the false
- Lamb et al (2007): focus on free recall answers to open questions, cued questions incorporating the child’s own words, avoid questions that include misinformation, no props
What was the legal impact?
- children’s advocacy centers: promote concerns over child suggestibility, repeated interviewing may not harm memory but is very stressful, children interviewed once by a highly trained professional
- taint hearings: pre-trial hearing to assess whether coercive interviewing had permanently tainted the child’s memory, could also be used for attorneys to discredit children’s testimony, eventually considered unnecessary
