CHAP 6 (Child Victims and Witnesses) Flashcards
Two Types of Eyewitness Evidence / Memory Variables
- Estimator Variables
- System Variables
____ revolutionized researchers’ approaches to eyewitness identification issues by coining estimator and system variables through research
Gary Wells
In Adult Eyewitness evidence memory is not 1. ___________,
due to 2. __________.
Can be benefitted by 3. ________________________
- Accurate
- Biases in how we recall information
- Improving system variables to get the best information possible
Estimator and system variables are examples of 1. independent or 2. dependent variables
Independent Variables
As a whole Eyewitness evidence is still _______ , but not ______
good, perfect
What is different about children victims / eyewitness?
Children are:
- Children are eager to please
- Children appeal more to authority figures
- Children are much more suggestible
Child eyewitnesses typically and most oftenly make this specific kind of error
Attribution errors (who said what, did what, etc)
Martensville Case (1991) “Brotherhood of the Ram”
- 2 year old with a diaper rash, mother suspected abuse at sterling babysitting business
- First interviewees (kids) said no abuse, because nothing was found. - - Kids believed they were giving the wrong answers, and started to change stories in subsequent interviews (even if unintentionally / are you really sure?)
- Started involving police officers! Into the wild stories
- Massive investigation, wrong charges / arrests to owners and police, $925 000 in damages to sterlings
- 6 out of 8 convictions overturned
Making false claims is known as ___________
Fabricating
If Children were needed to give eyewitness interview evidence, would Free Recall or Directed Questioning be better as an approach?
However, what are some issues with both approaches
__________________________
Free Recall
- However, children tend to report very little information using a free narrative
- Direct questions or probes, such as “What else do you remember?” are often necessary to elicit the required information.
- A dilemma arises considering the accuracy of direct questioning as children are much more suggestible to leading questions and give more inaccurate responses than adults
When children are asked to report all they can remember, using a free narrative approach, their _______ in reporting is comparable with that of _________ (Ceci & Bruck,
1993).
Accuracy, Adults
(TEXTBOOK PG 151) Why Are Children More Suggestible Than Adults?
- “Social Characteristics” = SOCIAL COMPLIANCE OR SOCIAL PRESSURE
- Aim to please, cooperate, infer desired answer sometimes even if illogical (Is red heavier than yellow? Gave yes or no answers) Hughes (1980)
- Hugely depends on interviewer
- CHANGES TO THE COGNITIVE SYSTEM
- Differences in the ways children and adults encode, store, and retrieve memories
- Forgetting and retention issues, ESPECIALLY MISATTRIBUTION
A doll, sometimes like a rag
doll, that is consistent with
the male or female anatomy
Anatomically detailed dolls
Techniques for Interviewing Children
- Human Figure Drawings (HFDs)
- Criterion-based content analysis (CBCA) / statement validity analysis (SVA)
- Step-wise interview
- Narrative Elaboration
- NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF CHILD HEALTH AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INTERVIEW PROTOCOL
- Cognitive Interview (Adapted for Children)
Analysis that uses criteria to
distinguish truthful from false
statements made by children
Criterion-based content
analysis (CBCA)
A comprehensive protocol to
distinguish truthful or false
statements made by children
containing three parts:
(1) a structured interview of the child witness,
(2) a systematic analysis of the verbal content of the child’s statements (criterion-based content analysis)
(3) the application of the statement validity checklist
Statement validity analysis
(SVA)
The underlying assumption of the CBCA is that
descriptions of real events differ in quality and content from memories that are fabricated.
- Eighteen criteria were developed to discriminate between true and fabricated events of sexual abuse.
- It is assumed that true events are more likely to contain the CBCA criteria rather than fabricated events
In Germany in the 1950s, Udo Undeutsch created which inteviewing technique
The “Undeutsch Hypothesis” or statement validity analysis (SVA)
Criterion-based content analysis (CBCA) is only _______ of a more comprehensive protocol called _______________________
part
statement validity analysis (SVA)
Interview protocol with a
series of “steps” designed to
start the interview with the
least leading and directive
type of questioning, and then
proceed to more specific forms
of questioning, as necessary
Step-wise interview
Interview procedure whereby
children learn to organize their
story into relevant categories:
participants, settings, actions,
conversation/affective states,
and consequences
Narrative elaboration
Narrative Elaborations categories of organizing stories
- Participants
- Settings
- Actions
- Conversation/affective states
- Consequences
After examining a number of interviewing protocols for
use with children, Dr. Michael Lamb and his colleagues developed an interviewing procedure that relies on open-ended questioning with two types of prompts available to interviewers
- Interviewers can use time prompts to have the child fill in details and a timeline
- Interviewers can use cue question prompts where details that the child has reported are used in the question and children are asked to elaborate
NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF CHILD HEALTH AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INTERVIEW PROTOCOL
-One issue that appears problematic for children is a multipart prompt where interviewers ask two questions together
Interview procedure for use
with eyewitnesses based on
principles of memory storage
and retrieval
Cognitive interview
Interview procedure that
includes various principles of
social dynamics in addition
to the memory retrieval
principles used in the original
cognitive interview
Enhanced cognitive
interview
Term to describe clients’ false
beliefs that they were sexually
abused / something happened to them as children, despite
having no memories of this abuse until they enter therapy
to deal with some other psychological problem, such as
depression or substance abuse
False memory syndrome
statement validity analysis (SVA) and Criterion-based content analysis (CBCA) is also known as / based off the _____________
“The Undeutsch Hypothesis”
“The Undeutsch Hypothesis” : ______________________
- Udo believed that by living through something, memory is much richer or different than imagination
- There has to be some factor that can differentiate between fantasy and reality in memory and that there is /has to be a way to tell (differences in quality / content)
3 Parts of statement validity analysis (SVA)
- Structured Interview: Open ended, ONLY Transcribed
(Expert analyses strictly the transcription and is not able to know anything else about the person - reduces bias) - Criteria Based Content Analysis (CBCA)
19 Criteria (logical Structure, unusual details, self deprecation, etc)
3 Point Scale (Absent, Present, Strongly Present) (Unusual details? Absent present or strongly present) - Integration of the results with validity checklist
Tests whether there is another explanation for the statement
The 4 Criteria of a Validity Checklist
Psychological Characteristics (Inappropriate language?)
Interview Characteristics (Coercive?)
Motivations (to lie?)
Investigative Questions (inconsistent evidence)
SVA - Does it Work?
Undeutsch alone - did 1500 statements analysed in child sexual abuse cases
- 90% diagnosed by him as truthful
- 95% of the cases accused was convicted
“newfound strong evidence and methods”, could sway the judge or jury, and something isn’t correct just because you follow it + it has effectiveness when you use it
Lab 50-55% (As reliable as a coin flip)
Keys of Step-Wise Interviewing
Yuille (1993)
- Broad and Non-Specific to start (Blonde hair? What did he look like?/ Try to minimise leading questions)
- Need free-recall
- Rapport is key “Patience and fact finding, experts only interviewing”
How do children do with traditional eyewitness line ups?
- **Sequential Worse for kids (Opposite to ADULTS)
- Elimination Line-up better (Pozzulo)**
Combination of relative (Stage 1) and absolute (Stage 2)
-** Compare the pictures to each other, point to the ones its not (left with a couple)
- Simultaneous ^**
- Then sequential afterwards with the remaining few
Extremely traumatic memory that the brain blocked out to minimise distress, and it is recalled much later
Repressed Memory
Crombag, Wagenaar & Van Koppen (1996)
- El Al Boeing 747 in Amsterdam Study
El Al Boeing 747 Crashed In Amsterdam
- “What do you remember about the event? “
- There was no footage of the crash whatsoever, only eyewitness, and participants may have only heard from others
!- People were sure they remember seeing specific things, using leading questions despite not seeing the crash at all
(TEXTBOOK)
Lindsay and Read (1995) suggested five criteria to consider when determining the veracity of a recovered memory:
- Age of complainant at the time of the alleged abuse. It is unlikely that anyone would have a memory (of abuse or otherwise) prior to age 2
- Techniques used to recover memory. Techniques such as hypnosis and guided imagery heighten suggestibility and encourage fantasy.
- Similarity of reports across interview sessions. Do the reports become increasingly more fantastic, or are they similar?
- Motivation for recall. Is the client experiencing other psychological distress and wanting an answer to explain such feelings?
- Time elapsed since the alleged abuse. It may be more difficult to recall abuse that occurred 25 years ago than abuse that took place 2 years ago
How do we decide if children testimonies are reliable in court ? How in Canada and what is the law?
Truth Versus lying (2006) for < 14
Used to be Competency Inquiry , questions used to determine
- Can they understand and respond adequately?
- Do they promise to be truthful?
**First part of the inquiry, children need only demonstrate a general ability to
perceive, recall, and communicate rather than demonstrate specific abilities for describing the event/crime in question (What grade are you in?)
**For the second part of the exam, children are questioned regarding their ability to distinguish between the truth and a lie and must demonstrate an understanding of the meaning of oath. Common themes for questioning in this section include (Defining terms, Religion and church, Consequences of lying) **
The second part of the inquiry may be particularly difficult for young children
(and even for some adults).
Now (Bala et al, Bill C-2) as a requirement
-Assumption is that they Can testify, no requirements compared to competency inquiry
- Children (defined as persons under the age of 14)
are asked simple questions about past events to determine their ability to understand and respond to questions.
- Children are requested to promise to tell the truth and testify under such a promise.
- No questions are asked about their understanding of the
notion of an oath or truth
Questions posed to child
witnesses under age 14 to
determine whether they are
able to communicate the
evidence and understand
the difference between the
truth and a lie and, in the
circumstances of testifying, to
see if they feel compelled to tell
the truth
Competency inquiry
Should children have to testify? Testifying behind Screen or CCTV?
Used to be rarely used (10%)
Rights of the defendant? (right to see your accuser)
Now much more common instead
Which should take precedence, in present it is more shifted towards child’s needs
Similarities between adults and children
- Still estimator and system variables
- Estimators may play greater role
- Are procedures to assist
(TEXTBOOK)
Professor Nicholas Bala has conducted extensive work in the area of child witness testimony. Bala (1999) identified a number of alternatives to in-court
testimony that have been used in the Canadian system and are now available to any witness under the
age of 18 and to vulnerable witnesses upon application.
- A shield/screen to separate the child and defendant
- The child is allowed to provide testimony via a closed-circuit television monitor
- The child may have a support person with them while providing testimony
- A child may be videorecorded while being interviewed
5.Generally, previous statements made by a witness are considered hearsay and are not admissible. However, in sexual abuse cases, judges can apply the rules liberally, and statements made by the child during the initial disclosure of the abuse may be allowed as evidence.
- The judge may close the courtroom to the public or media to protect the privacy
of the child.
