Reducing Suggestibility in Child Witness Interviews

Memon, Amina; Holley, Angela; Wark, Linsey; Bull, Ray; Köhnken, Günter

doi:10.1002/(sici)1099-0720(199612)10:6<503::aid-acp416>3.0.co;2-r

Cited by 82 publications

(65 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Vrij and Bush, 2000). Memon et al (1996b) measured suggestibility in terms of resistance to misleading questions and reported that children gave more correct responses to post-interview misleading questions if given a Cognitive interview than a structured interview. Vrij and Bush, on the other hand, measured suggestibility in terms of proportion of incorrect responses to misleading questions and reported that 5-to 6-year-olds were more suggestible than 10-to 11-year-olds.…”

Section: The Cognitive Interview and Misinformation Effects In Childrenmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…In Memon et al's (1996b) study, for example, 8-and 9-year-olds watched a short film, then 12 days later were given misleading and neutral questions before and after a Cognitive interview employing the context reinstatement and report all mnemonics. Memon et al (1996b) found no differences in responding to pre-interview questions. When children were questioned post-interview, however, those given a prior Cognitive interview gave more correct responses to misleading questions than those given a structured interview (for similar findings see Milne and Bull, in press b).…”

Section: Misinformation Effects and The Cognitive Interviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, the measure of the suggestibility or misinformation effect differed remarkably from that used by Memon et al (1996b) and others (e.g. Vrij and Bush, 2000).…”

Section: The Cognitive Interview and Misinformation Effects In Childrenmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The effect of a prior cognitive interview on children's acceptance of misinformation

Holliday

2003

Applied Cognitive Psychology

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This research examined whether a Cognitive interview facilitates correct recall in children aged 4 to 5 and 9 to 10 years, and whether a Cognitive interview given before post-event misinformation reduces children's reporting of suggestions on subsequent memory tests. Children were presented with an event followed the next day by a Cognitive or a Memorandum interview. Children were then read a post-event summary containing misleading suggestions. The next day all children were given both standard test and modified forced-choice cued-recall tests. The free recall phase of the Cognitive interview elicited the greatest number of correct details. Age differences were found such that 9-to 10-year-old children's reports were more accurate and more complete than those of the 4-to 5-year-olds. More correct person, action and object details were reported in a Cognitive interview. Misinformation effects were found in both age groups on the standard test whereas on the modified test such an effect was only found in the 4-to 5-year-olds. Children's reporting of suggestions was unaffected by prior interview.

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Section: The Cognitive Interview and Misinformation Effects In Childrenmentioning

confidence: 92%

Section: Misinformation Effects and The Cognitive Interviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The effect of a prior cognitive interview on children's acceptance of misinformation

Holliday

2003

Applied Cognitive Psychology

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“…Because option-posing and suggestive questions by definition involve the introduction of information by the investigator, they have the potential to contaminate later phases of the child's report, especially when younger children are involved (Bjorklund, Bjorklund, Brown, & Cassel, 1998;Memon, Wark, Holley, Bull, & Köhnken, 1996), and thus their delayed utilization is forensically important. Clearly, forensic interviewers should provide children with Although implementation of the protocol fostered substantial reductions in the number of details elicited using option-posing and suggestive prompts, such information still amounted to approximately one quarter of the total elicited even when the protocol was used.…”

Section: The Nichd Investigative Protocolmentioning

confidence: 99%

A structured forensic interview protocol improves the quality and informativeness of investigative interviews with children: A review of research using the NICHD Investigative Interview Protocol

Lamb

Orbach

Hershkowitz

et al. 2007

Child Abuse & Neglect

519

439

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Objective-To show how the results of research on children's memory, communicative skills, social knowledge, and social tendencies can be translated into guidelines that improve the quality of forensic interviews of children.Method-We review studies designed to evaluate children's capacities as witnesses, explain the development of the structured NICHD Investigative Interview Protocol, and discuss studies designed to assess whether use of the Protocol enhances the quality of investigative interviews.Results-Controlled studies have repeatedly shown that the quality of interviewing reliably and dramatically improves when interviewers employ the NICHD Protocol. No other technique has been proven to be similarly effective.Conclusions-Use of the structured NICHD Protocol improves the quality of information obtained from alleged victims by investigators, thereby increasing the likelihood that interventions will be appropriate. IntroductionWhereas Kempe and his colleagues (1962) helped launch scholarly interest in physical child abuse with their landmark paper nearly 50 years ago, professional (and popular) interest in child sexual abuse came much later. It was prompted in part by dramatic increases in the numbers of reported cases, and by awareness that many cases of abuse might go unrecognized Correspondence and reprint requests should be addressed to Michael E. Lamb, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, University of Cambridge, Free School Lane, Cambridge CB2 3RQ, UK. E-mail: mel37@cam.ac.uk. Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. NIH Public Access Author ManuscriptChild Abuse Negl. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2008 January 9. Published in final edited form as:Child Abuse Negl. 2007 ; 31(11-12): 1201-1231. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript because the victims were the only possible sources of information and were seldom given the appropriate opportunities to describe their experiences to those who might have been able to help them. Indeed, because alleged victims are often the only available sources of information, considerable efforts have been made to understand how children's testimony can be made as useful and accurate as possible. Since 1990, furthermore, highly publicized cases in the United States (California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Florida), Norway (Bergen), New Zealand (Christchurch), and the UK (Cleveland, Newcastle), among others, have drawn attention to the counterproductive ways in which alleged victims of sexual abuse are sometimes interviewed. In many such cases, inappr...

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“…Research from this perspective typically manipulates such variables as age of witnesses, delay between events and questioning, and methods of questioning in order to determine which circumstances yield the most reliable reports. Contrived events (e.g., a magic show; Memon, Holley, Wark, Bull, & Kohnken, 1996) or natural occurrences (e.g., a peCorrespondence concerning this article should be addressed to 1. 1.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Efficient coding of eyewitness narratives: A comparison of syntactic unit and word count procedures

Dickinson

Poole

2000

Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers

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Researchers rely on two types of coding systems to evaluate eyewitness narratives. Features-ofevents checklists offer coding simplicity but are impractical when target events are complex. Vnits-ofinformation (VOl) systems score all information reported, regardless of event complexity,but are difficult to implement. To test whether simpler systems would alter conclusions about memory performance, transcripts from children (3-8 years of age) who participated in an eyewitness study, originally coded using a VOl system called syntactic units (SV), were recoded using two word count procedures. Correlations between SV, modified word count, and raw word count values were high, and the proportion of information that was inaccurate was comparable across systems. Considering their high interrater reliability, procedural simplicity, and convergence with SV coding, word count procedures are efficient alternatives to VOl coding.

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Reducing Suggestibility in Child Witness Interviews

Cited by 82 publications

References 16 publications

The effect of a prior cognitive interview on children's acceptance of misinformation

The effect of a prior cognitive interview on children's acceptance of misinformation

A structured forensic interview protocol improves the quality and informativeness of investigative interviews with children: A review of research using the NICHD Investigative Interview Protocol

Efficient coding of eyewitness narratives: A comparison of syntactic unit and word count procedures

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