The effects of implicit encouragement and the putative confession on children’s memory reports

Abstract

The current study tested the effects of two interview techniques on children's report productivity and accuracy following exposure to suggestion: implicit encouragement (backchanneling, use of children's names) and the putative confession (telling children that a suspect "told me everything that happened and wants you to tell the truth"). One hundred and forty-three, 3-8-year-old children participated in a classroom event. One week later, they took part in a highly suggestive conversation about the event and then a mock forensic interview in which the two techniques were experimentally manipulated. Greater use of implicit encouragement led to increases, with age, in children's narrative productivity. Neither technique improved or reduced children's accuracy. No increases in errors about previously suggested information were evident when children received either technique. Implications for the use of these techniques in child forensic interviews are discussed.

Increasing maltreated and nonmaltreated children’s recall disclosures of a minor transgression: The effects of back-channel utterances, a promise to tell the truth, and a post-recall putative confession

“…Conversely, consistent with previous research (Cleveland et al, 2018, Hershkowitz, 2002Lamb, Hershkowitz, Sternberg, Boat, & Everson, 1996), back-channel utterances increased the productivity of disclosures but not disclosures themselves, and thus could be characterized as recall enhancement. Similarly, narrative practice rapport building has been found to increase the productivity of disclosures (Sternberg et al, 1997), but had not been found CHILDREN'S RECALL to increase the likelihood that transgressions will be disclosed Yi & Lamb, 2018).…”

“…The instruction has been shown to increase true disclosures of transgressions Quas et al, 2018;Rush et al, 2017;Stolzenberg, McWilliams, & Lyon, 2017) and to decrease false claims (Rush et al, CHILDREN'S RECALL 2017). Furthermore, the putative confession has not been found to increase false reports among children who have been suggestively questioned (Cleveland et al, 2018;Rush et al, 2017).…”

“…Furthermore, because the observational work is correlational, it is possible that the relation merely means that more productive children elicit more use of back-channel utterances. Cleveland, Quas and Lyon (2018) experimentally manipulated interviewers' use of "implicit encouragement" (back-channel utterances and vocatives, i.e., use of the child's name) when questioning 3-to 8-year-olds about their memory for a target event, and found that implicit encouragement increased productivity without undermining accuracy. However, children did not appear reluctant to disclose the target event, and the effects of implicit encouragement on disclosure itself was not assessed.…”

“…Based on previous research, we made several predictions. First, we hypothesized that back-channel utterances would increase children's productivity (i.e., the number of details) CHILDREN'S RECALL without increasing error (Cleveland et al, 2018;Yi & Lamb, 2018). Because of lacking evidence that back-channels overcome reluctance, we did not make any prediction regarding its effects on disclosure.…”

Effects of the putative confession instruction on perceptions of children's true and false statements

“…Furthermore, in failing to provide specific details about the suspect's statements, the instruction avoids the suggestive effects of telling children about other witnesses' reports (Garven, Wood, Malpass, & Shaw, ) or asking children to speculate or pretend (Schreiber, Wentura, & Bilsky, ). Indeed, the PC has not been found to increase false reports when a transgression did not occur (Lyon et al, ; Quas et al, ), even among children suggestively questioned (Cleveland, Quas, & Lyon, ; Rush et al, ). Additionally, the PC has been effective among children who are less responsive to a request that they promise to tell the truth, including younger and maltreated children (McWilliams et al, n.d.).…”