Suggestibility of the child witness: a historical review and synthesis

Anatomically-neutral dolls: their effects on the memory and suggestibility of 4- to 6-year-old eyewitnesses

The purpose of this investigation was to compare the amount and accuracy of details provided in the eyewitness accounts of preschool-aged children interviewed exclusively with a verbal interview against those interviewed with anatomically-neutral dolls in addition to a verbal interview. Forty-four children, aged 4 to 6 years, were paired up and assigned as participants or observers for an event they engaged in with a confederate. Children's memory was assessed afterwards by (a) The Step-Wise Interview (Yuille, Hunter, Joffe, & Zaparniuk, 1993); (b) the Step-Wise Interview and big dolls; or (c) The Step-Wise Interview and small, detailed dolls and props. Three leading questions were incorporated into the interviews. Results indicated no main effect of interview type on the overall amount or accuracy of the children's accounts. No main effects for interview type or participant versus observer condition were observed for the leading questions. Relative to 4-year-olds, 5-year-olds recalled a greater number of overall details and were more accurate in their accounts with both types of dolls. Females were more accurate than males in their accounts with the small detailed toys and props. Implications for the use of anatomically-neutral dolls in child sexual abuse investigations are discussed.

Effects of temporally varied biased and unbiased story summaries on the suggestibility of preschoolers

Preschool children's resistance to the influence of postevent misinformation was investigated. Ninety-one preschoolers (3 years 6 months to 5 years 6 months old) were read a story about a boy's birthday party. One week later, they received 1 of 3 summary conditions containing general information (unbiased, biased, or no summary). Two weeks after the original story, they were presented with either a biased summary or no summary. The children's suggestibility was assessed by a recognition test that provided a choice between the original and postevent misinformation. Those who received an unbiased summary showed higher recognition rates than those who received a biased summary, regardless of whether the biased information had been given at the 1- or 2-week interval. Although an unbiased summary followed by biased information did not produce greater recognition rates that were found in the control group, participants who received unbiased summaries did perform above chance, suggesting that even a vague summary may help to reactivate specific memory traces, particularly when information is bimodally presented.

Understanding Vicarious Traumatization

1. Close and prolonged work with victims of trauma and abuse can have serious psychological consequences for professionals. 2. The consequences to professionals can include development of anxiety, depression, intrusive thoughts, alienation, dissociative episodes, feeling of helplessness, paranoia, hypervigilance, and disrupted personal relationships. 3. The concepts of cognitive processing models and investigation into memory dynamics can offer understanding of vicarious traumatization, and may help define preventive measures and treatment options for this condition.

Explaining conversation rules to children: an intervention study to facilitate children's accurate responses

In the past few years there has been increased concern over the role of social influences on children's reports during interviews. It is argued that the number of wrong answers can be reduced by explaining a set of social rules of conversation to children at the beginning of an interview. In the present experiment, the effects of two conversation rules were tested. Children were informed that (a) "I-don't-know" is an acceptable answer, and (b) the interviewer would not be able to help them in answering the questions. A total of 114 children, aged 4 to 10, watched a staged event and were interviewed afterwards. The two factors were systematically varied in the experiment by utilizing a 2 x 2 factorial design. The results supported the hypotheses that introduction of these rules would reduce suggestibility. Our findings have implications for interviewing child witnesses.

The real-life/laboratory controversy as viewed from the cognitive neurobiology of animal learning and memory

Parallel to Koriat & Goldsmith's accounting of human memory, there are two distinct approaches in animal learning. Behaviorist approaches focus on quantitative aspects of conditioned response probability, whereas cognitive and ethological approaches focus on qualitative aspects of how memory is used in real life. Moreover, in animal research these distinguishable measures of memory are dissociated in experimental amnesia.

Hypothesis testing in experimental and naturalistic memory research

Koriat & Goldsmith's distinction between the correspondence and storehouse metaphors is valuable for both memory theory and methodology. It is questionable, however, whether this distinction underlies the heated debate about so called “everyday memory” research. The distinction between experimental and naturalistic methodologies better characterizes this debate. I compare these distinctions and discuss how the methodological distinction, between experimental and naturalistic designs, could give rise to different theoretical approaches.

False dichotomies and dead metaphors

Koriat & Goldsmith's thesis is provocative but has three problems: First, quantity and accuracy are not simply related, they are complementary. Second, the storehouse metaphor is not the driving force behind contemporary theories of memory and may not be viable. Third, the taxonomy is incomplete, leaving unclassified several extremely influential methods and measures, such as priming and response latency.

Operationaling “correspondence”

The research guided by the correspondence metaphor is lauded for its emphasis on functional analysis, but the term “correspondence” itself needs clarification. Of the two terms in the relationship, only one is well defined. It is suggested that behavior at acquisition needs to be analyzed and that molecular principles from the learning laboratory might be useful in doing so.

Metacognition, metaphors, and the measurement of human memory

Investigations of metacognition – and also the application of the storehouse and correspondence metaphors – seem as appropriate for laboratory research as for naturalistic research. In terms of measurement, the only quantitative difference between the “input-bound percent correct” and “output-bound percent correct” is the inclusion versus exclusion (respectively) of omission errors in the denominator of the percentages.

Driving and dish-washing: Failure of the correspondence metaphor for memory

Koriat & Goldsmith restrict their definition of memory to “being about some past event,” which causes them to ignore the most common use of memory: everyday visual-motor tasks. New techniques make it possible to study memory in the context of these natural tasks with which memory is so tightly coupled. Memory can be more fully understood in the context of these actions.

On correspondence, accuracy, and truth

Koriat & Goldsmith raise important questions about memory, but there is need for caution: first, if we define accuracy by output measures, there is a danger that a perfectly accurate memory can be nearly useless. Second, when we focus on correspondence, there is a danger that syntactic correspondence will be mistaken for historical truth.

Amnesia and metamemory demonstrate the importance of both metaphors

The correspondence metaphor is useful in developing functional models of memory. However, the storehouse metaphor is still useful in developing structural and process models of memory. Traditional research techniques explore the structure of memory; everyday techniques explore the function of memory. We illustrate this point with two examples: amnesia and metamemory. In each phenomenon, both metaphors are useful.

Accuracy and quantity are poor measures of recall and recognition

The value of accuracy and quantity as memory measures is assessed. It is argued that (1) accuracy does not measure correspondence (monitoring) because it ignores omissions and correct rejections, (2) quantity is confounded with monitoring in recall, and (3) in recognition, if targets and foils are unequal, both measures, even together, still ignore correct rejections.

Classical antecedents for modern metaphors for memory

Classical antiquity provides not just the storehouse metaphor, which postdates Plato, but also parts of the correspondence metaphor. In the fifth century B.C., Thucydides (1.22) considered the role of gist and accuracy in writing history, and Aristotle (Poetics1451b, 1460b 8–11) offered an explanation. Finally, the Greek for truth (alêtheia) means “that which is not forgotten.”

The correspondence metaphor: Prescriptive or descriptive?

Koriat & Goldsmith's abstract correspondence metaphor is unlikely to prove useful to memory science. It aims to motivate and inform the investigation of everyday memory, but that movement has prospered without it. The irrelevance of its competitor – the more concrete storehouse metaphor – as a guiding force in memory research presages a similar fate for the correspondence perspective.

The phenomenal object of memory and control processes

This commentary deals with criteria for assigning truth values to memory contents. A parallel with perception shows how truth values can be assigned by considering subjects' beliefs about the truth state of the memory content. This topic is also relevant to the study of processes of control over retrieval.

Everyday memory and activity

The target article interprets current psychological research on everyday memory in terms of a correspondence metaphor. This metaphor is based on a reduction of everyday memory to autobiographical and eyewitness memory. This commentary focuses on everyday memory as it functions in activity. Viewed from this perspective, the joining of everyday memory to a correspondence metaphor is problematic. A more natural way to frame the processes of everyday memory is in terms of context, practice, and pragmatics.

Let's forget the everyday/laboratory controversy

In contrast to its aims, Koriat & Goldsmith's article vividly demonstrates(1) the complementarity of ecological and traditional approaches and (2) the difficulty of characterising the growing diversity of memory research with a single set of distinctions. Moreover, the contrast between correspondence and storehouse metaphors is important enough to stand alone without reference to an everyday/laboratory controversy, which is neither acute nor necessary.

Where to look first for suggestibility in young children

Preschoolers' suggestibility following exposure to biased information has often been interpreted as indicating that memory traces have been genuinely altered. However, young children may not recognize that the purpose and relevance of questions in experiments on suggestibility is to determine whether they can ignore misinformation in remembering the original details of stories. Instead, children may be prompted to regard the original story details as trivial by experimenters who are perceived as having portrayed these details as unimportant or irrelevant in that they themselves did not bother to get these right. Under such conditions, children may interpret the biased information to mean that a biased alternative was an acceptable, or even a preferred, test choice when compared to the original details. We report the results of an investigation with 3- to 5-year-olds in which children heard a story followed the next day by either biased, unbiased, or no information. The children were able to identify the original story details 6 days later when the questions were phrased in an explicit manner that referred to the time of the information to be recalled.

Correspondence conception of memory: A good match is hard to find

The distinction that Koriat & Goldsmith have drawn between laboratory and naturalistic research is largely valid, but the metaphor they have chosen to characterize the latter may not be optimal. The “correspondence” approach is vulnerable on conceptual grounds and is not applicable to significant portions of empirical research.

Interviewing children about past events: the influence of peer support and misleading questions

The present experiment investigated the influence of peer support and leading and misleading questions on children's reports of a neutral event. Twenty-four children aged between 5 and 7 years and 24 children aged between 8 and 10 years took part in an event which focused on the parts and functions of the human body. Three days later they were interviewed about the event either alone or with a same-sex peer. The younger children recalled less information than the older children during prompted recall, and both age groups made very few errors. For questions, younger children made significantly more errors in response to directly misleading questions that to indirectly misleading questions. Both age groups were very accurate in response to directly and indirectly leading questions. Peer support did not influence children's prompted recall reports about the event or their responses to questions. These results are discussed in the context of their implications for interviewing children about past events.

Memory systems and the psychoanalytic retrieval of memories of trauma

Increasingly, psychoanalysis has confronted the issue of recovered memories of childhood trauma. Based on trauma research, the concept of a special traumatic memory has evolved. Overwhelming psychic experience is thought to generate a defensively altered state of consciousness (specifically dissociation), which encodes memory in unassimilated visual, somatic, and behavioral, rather than linguistic modes. Analytic reevocation and interpretation of the original altered states of consciousness then permits the transformation of "early" traumatic memory into "later" explicit memory. Examined from the vantage point of contemporary cognitive research and theory, underlying flaws may be found in these propositions when they are extended to patients without explicit memory of trauma: first, dissociation is a chameleonlike process, perhaps as closely associated with suggestibility as with trauma; second, state-dependent learning does not adequately account for the absence of explicit memory; and third, implicit memory does not map onto explicit memory in any direct or simple fashion. Consequently, the clinical application of current propositions about traumatic memory to patients without explicit memory of trauma may warrant considerable caution. Provisional guidelines are offered for estimating the validity of retrieved memories of trauma.

Interviewing the Young Child Sexual Abuse Victim

1. Nurses can facilitate the disclosure by a young child of sexual abuse by using developmentally sensitive language, such as through the use of proper nouns, single-idea sentences, and the avoidance of technical terms. 2. Nurses can guide the interview from benign, open-ended questions to context-specific, focused questions. Differentiation is made between being specific versus being suggestive. 3. Rapport-building is an important part of the alliance with the child and the nurse. Interviewers should be matter-of-fact and acknowledge any discomfort the child may demonstrate. 4. Cognitive interviewing is a specific technique designed to access accurate recall of a child's memories through reconstruction and memory-jogging techniques.

"Is this man your daddy?" suggestibility in children's eyewitness identification of a family member

Studies of natural language development suggest that overextension of family memberships terms, such as daddy or papa, occurs in children in the second year of life, but rarely persists thereafter. However, in British Courts it is common for the testimony of 3- and even 4-year-olds to be dismissed on the grounds that these children may not be reliably identifying their father or stepfather when they claim that daddy was the perpetrator of abuse. This study examined whether 3-year-olds could be persuaded to confirm that a stranger who was labelled as daddy was their own father. A mock interview with experienced disclosure interviewers was conducted. Five of the 17 children--all from blue-collar families--misidentified a photograph of their own father when an identification question was repeated. Rather than undermining the validity of all preschoolers testimony, it is suggested that the responses of some children to apparently mundane questions of fact are influenced by contextual factors, including repetition of the question and the perceived omniscience of the interviewer.

Psycholegal issues in child sexual abuse evaluations: a survey of forensic mental health professionals

Mental health professionals play a significant role in assessment, rendering expert opinions, and making dispositional recommendations in cases involving allegations of child sexual abuse. Although there have been recent efforts to develop guidelines for practice, little is known about how evaluators actually prefer to proceed in such evaluations, or whether there is consensus with respect to how to proceed. In this study, a sample of Massachusetts child forensic mental health professionals who specialize in conducting evaluations of children in cases involving allegations of sexual abuse were surveyed to assess their normative evaluation and testimony practices with respect to information gathered during clinical interviews and psychosocial assessment of the child. The survey assessed evaluators: (a) opinions; (b) reasons for opinions; and (c) typical practices concerning psycholegal issues associated with child sexual abuse evaluations. Survey questions covered three topics: (a) the evaluation process and methods; (b) the limits of expert opinions and testimony; and (c) child advocacy. Results of the survey are presented, and implications for child forensic practice are discussed.

Best interests of the child in the family and community. Social, legal, and medical implications for pediatricians

Pediatricians play a large role in social-legal efforts to assure children of appropriate priorities in a democratic society. Pediatricians must be aware of the social, legal, and medical ramifications of divorce, physical or sexual abuse, and medical/pediatric problems and how to serve the best interests of the child.

Pseudomemories: the standard of science and the standard of care in trauma treatment

The pseudomemory (PM) debate has focused on individuals who do not remember sexual abuse and later recover these memories, often in therapy. This paper critically reviews experimental research on stress and memory and on suggestibility and memory in terms of its applicability to PM production in therapy. Three different kinds of suggestibility are identified--hypnotizability, postevent misinformation suggestibility, and interrogatory suggestibility. It is hypothesized that interrogatory suggestibility alone or the interaction of all three pose significant risk for PM production. It is argued that a better standard of science is needed before claims can be made about PM production in therapy, since no experimental studies have been conducted on memory performance or suggestibility effects in therapy. However, the findings derived from memory research on other populations, nevertheless, are useful to inform the standard of care in treating recovered memory patients.

Fifty months of memory: a longitudinal study in early childhood

Three studies were conducted to evaluate long-term memory longitudinally. In Study 1, 10-month-olds (N = 20) were taught to operate a toy in their homes and were tested at home after four months, as were age-matched (14 months) inexperienced controls (N = 20). Experienced infants were more willing to remain in the play situation, relearned faster than controls, and one operated the toy spontaneously. In Study 2, conducted 18 months thereafter, two subgroups (N = 5) of Study 1 groups and an age-matched (32 months) control group (N = 5) were observed in a lab playroom. Only the children with experiences at both 10 months and 14 months operated the toys without being shown. Children with a single 14-month experience made equivalent numbers of toy contacts and successful responses, however, and both groups exceeded controls. In Study 3, conducted 2+ years after Study 2, 36 children played in a novel playroom. Subgroups differed in amount and timing of experience (in Studies 1 and 2); a naive age-matched (60 months) control group (N = 6) was added. Controls took longer to make the toy work than children in the combined experience groups. Only experienced children elected to operate the toys later in the session. Two children verbally recalled part of the 10-month event. The findings are discussed in the light of their relevance to the assessment and description of memory during early childhood.

The possible role of source misattributions in the creation of false beliefs among preschoolers

In this article the authors examine one possible factor in the creation of false beliefs among preschool-aged children, namely, source misattributions. The authors present the results from an ongoing program of research which suggest that source misattributions could be a mechanism underlying children's false beliefs about having experienced fictitious events. Findings from this program of research indicate that, although all children are susceptible to making source misattributions, very young children may be disproportionately vulnerable to these kinds of errors. This vulnerability leads younger preschoolers, on occasion, to claim that they remember actually experiencing events that they only thought about or were suggested by others. These results are discussed in the context of the ongoing debate over the veracity and durability of delayed reports of early memories, repressed memories, dissociative states, and the validity risks posed by therapeutic techniques that entail repeated visually guided imagery inductions.