This article reviews an evidence-based tool for training child forensic interviewers called the NICHD Protocol, and the relevant research on: children's memory development; communication; suggestibility; the importance of open-prompts, and challenges associated with interview training. We include international contributions from experienced trainers, practitioners, and scientists, who are already using the Protocol or whose national or regional procedures have been directly influenced by the NICHD Protocol research (Canada, Finland, Israel, Japan, Korea, Norway, Portugal, Scotland, and United States). Throughout the review, these experts comment on: how and when the Protocol was adopted in their country; who uses it; challenges to implementation and translation; training procedures; and other pertinent aspects.We aim to further promote good interviewing practice by sharing the experiences of these experts. The NICHD Protocol can be easily incorporated into existing training programs worldwide and is available for free. It was originally developed in English and Hebrew and is available in several other languages at nichdprotocol.com. Central to the development of interview guidelines has been knowledge of how memory works, children's developmental capabilities, and the conditions that improve children's ability to discuss their abuse experiences. After many decades of experimental and applied memory research, conducted primarily by psychologists, we have come to understand the strengths, weaknesses, and features of children's memory very well, and this knowledge has shaped many professional recommendations about interviewing children (e.g., American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children [APSAC], 1990[APSAC], , 1997 Home Office, 1992, 2002, Lamb, Orbach, Hershkowitz, Esplin, & Horowitz, 2007; Ministry of Justice, 2011; Poole & Lamb, NICHD PROTOCOL REVIEW 4 1998; Scottish Executive, 2003. Because our knowledge of memory is now so advanced, core recommendations made by professional bodies worldwide share remarkable consensus Lamb, La Rooy, Malloy, & Katz, 2011). Small differences in recommended procedures usually arise out of regional idiosyncratic legal constraints, rather than disagreements between scientists about the basic nature of memory and children's developing abilities. While structured, the NICHD Protocol is flexible enough to allow for such modifications to enhance its applicability for use around the world. We now briefly review the empirical literature on children's memory development that served to guide all aspects of the NICHD Protocol. Important Characteristics of Memory DevelopmentVery young children can remember and report their experiences. It is paradoxical that, as adults, we have very little recollection of our early years of life, whereas young children and infants can and do remember their experiences, at least for a short period of time (e.g., Bauer, Wenner, Dropik, & Wewerka, 2000). Memory for experiences in fact develops long before infants can tell us about the...

Three experiments examined reminiscence and hypermnesia in 5- and 6-year-olds' memory for an event across repeated interviews that occurred either immediately afterward (Experiment 1) or after a 6-month delay (Experiments 2 and 3). Reminiscence (recall of new information) was reliably obtained in all of the experiments, although the numbers of new items recalled were fewer after a delay than when the interviews occurred immediately afterward. Hypermnesia (increasing total recall over repeated recall attempts) was obtained only in Experiment 1 when interviews occurred immediately and 24 h after the event.

Within the legal system, children are frequently interviewed about their experiences more than once, with different information elicited in different interviews. The presumed positive and negative effects of multiple interviewing have generated debate and controversy within the legal system and among researchers. Some commentators emphasize that repeated interviews foster inaccurate recall and are inherently suggestive, whereas others emphasize the benefits of allowing witnesses more than 1 opportunity to recall information. In this article, we briefly review the literature on repeated interviewing before presenting a series of cases highlighting what happens when children are interviewed more than once for various reasons. We conclude that, when interviewers follow internationally recognized best-practice guidelines emphasizing open-questions and free memory recall, alleged victims of abuse should be interviewed more than once to ensure that more complete accounts are obtained. Implications for current legal guidelines concerning repeated interviewing are discussed.

Binocular rivalry occurs when different images are presented one to each eye: the images are visible only alternately. Monocular rivalry occurs when different images are presented both to the same eye: the clarity of the images fluctuates alternately. Could both sorts of rivalry reflect the operation of a general visual mechanism for dealing with perceptual ambiguity? We report four experiments showing similarities between the two phenomena. First, we show that monocular rivalry can occur with complex images, as with binocular rivalry, and that the two phenomena are affected similarly by the size (Experiment 1) and colour (Experiment 2) of the images. Second, we show that the distribution of dominance periods during monocular rivalry has a gamma shape and is stochastic (Experiment 3). Third, we show that during periods of monocular-rivalry suppression, the threshold to detect a probe (a contrast pulse to the suppressed stimulus) is raised compared with during periods of dominance (Experiment 4). The threshold elevation is much weaker than during binocular rivalry, consistent with monocular rivalry's weak appearance. We discuss other similarities between monocular and binocular rivalry, and also some differences, concluding that part of the processing underlying both phenomena is a general visual mechanism for dealing with perceptual ambiguity.

SUMMARYThe effects of context reinstatement as means of enhancing 5-and 6-year-old children's event memory in repeated interviews after a 6-month delay were examined. Children were interviewed immediately after the event (baseline interview) and twice at a 6-month delay, with 24 hours between interviews. The first 6-month interview was conducted in a perfect-context reinstatement (n ¼ 15), imperfect-context reinstatement (n ¼ 16), or no-context reinstatement (n ¼ 15) condition. The second 6-month interview was conducted 24 hours later with no-context reinstatement for all children. Context reinstatement attenuated the effects of delay on recall. The accuracy of the details reported was greater in the perfect-context compared to the imperfect-context and no-context conditions. Details repeated between the immediate-baseline interview and in the first 6-month interview were more accurate than details repeated between the first and second 6-month interview. There was no increase in recall (hypermnesia) across the first and second 6-month interviews in any condition. Practical implications of these findings are discussed.