Children Eyewitness Testimony - Essay Example

RUNNING HEAD: CHILDREN'S EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY Developmental and Emotional Aspects of Children's Eyewitness Testimony This paper reviews several research studies regarding various aspects of children's eyewitness testimony. These studies show that even children as young as 4 years of age can be trusted to understand the difference between truth and lies and to tell the truth about experiences that happened to them personally. As children age and their cognitive faculties develop, their ability to accurately recall their experiences increases. Great caution must be taken, however, in interviewing children after a considerable amount of time has passed. Leading questions can interfere with children's accurate representations of events in the distant past. Interviewers must also be extremely careful in questioning children, and even adults, with certain personality characteristics to ensure that factual information is obtained. Developmental and Emotional Aspects of Children's Eyewitness Testimony In the not too distant past, it was believed that children should be seen and not heard. As a result, crimes against children were not often punished, or even acknowledged. During the past two decades, these once silent victims have now been given a voice (Goodman and Schaaf 1997). Their victimisers are now being brought to justice, and it is often the testimony of the children themselves that is the deciding factor in many of these trials. Children's eyewitness testimony is being utilised more frequently than ever before in the history of the legal system (White, Leichtman, and Ceci 1997). While this is an important step in the right direction, it does pose some questions. Do children really understand the difference between truth and lies How accurate are children's memories for past events - especially emotionally-charged events How easy is it to shape a child's answer with misinformation And what about timing Many cases are not even brought to trial for months or years after the event occurred. Can children accurately remember something that happened to them in the past All these questions, and more, have been answered in a vast body of literature on children's eyewitness testimony. One of the main tenets of the judicial system is that all witness testimony must be truthful. Truth is an abstract concept that is not even readily comprehensible by some adults. For instance, there is the long-standing philosophical argument of whether truth is absolute or relative. Truth, as it is thought of in legal terms, must be absolute in order for the judicial system to function efficiently. Can children be expected to understand what absolute truth is, and to tell the truth when they are speaking about events that happened to them Josef Perner (1997) reviews several studies showing that young children can be relied upon to know the truth, and to speak it, although they may not develop a complete understanding of the truth until much later. Children are aware of the differences between true and false as early as age two (Perner 1997). These younger children are prone to "false memories" and are quite susceptible to misinformation; thus, their testimony may not be as accurate as an older child's (Perner 1997). By age four, children begin to understand "why they know what they know," and it is about this same time that the very important ability to remember personal experiences becomes more fully developed (Perner 1997). It is safe to say that the memories of children within this age range can be trusted; however, Perner notes that an understanding of the reasons why one is morally obligated to speak the truth in a court of law does not become fully developed until a child is about nine or ten years of age (1997). According to Perner (1997), this understanding of moral duty is not crucial for effective witness testimony. What is crucial for effective witness testimony Accuracy. How accurate are children's memories of past events Even adults with tremendous memory capacities sometimes forget things, or remember things differently, based on their individual perceptions of events and people. Do children exhibit this same tendency Roebers and Schneider (2001a) compared the free recall and identification abilities of children six, eight, and ten years of age with those of adults. All the subjects watched a video of a gang of boys stopping another boy on his way home from school and taking money from him. The subjects were then asked to give a verbal description of what they saw, and to identify the people involved from a photo line-up. The narrative reports were increasingly more thorough and accurate as the age of the subjects increased; however, the younger children were just as proficient at identifying the faces of the characters in the video as the older children and adults (Roebers and Schneider 2001a). Misleading information led to decreased performance in all the age groups, although the adults were more cautious, and more accurate, when selecting faces from the line-up (Roebers and Schneider 2001a). This could be related to the fact that the adults had a greater understanding of the concept of "innocent until proven guilty," and they did not want to wrongly accuse anyone. Most of the literature on children's eyewitness testimony focuses on the accuracy of the recalled information, and most of these experiments are conducted in a laboratory setting. While the information that can be gleaned from these studies is indeed useful for understanding the factors that can influence children's testimony, most of the events about which children will be asked in a court of law do not occur inside the courtroom. For this reason, it is important to examine children's abilities to recall information about events occurring in a natural setting. Brigham, Van Verst, and Bothwell (1986) did just that. They tested the recall of 4th graders (ages 9-10), 8th graders (ages 13-14), and 11th graders (ages 16-17) for a staged robbery occurring on school grounds. Five minutes after the "robbery" occurred, the students were given a questionnaire to fill out about what they witnessed. Five minutes later, they were asked to pick out the robber from a photo line-up. After the photo line-up, the students were interviewed with a series of leading, and non-leading, questions. The younger children's performance on the recall task and the photo line-up was significantly worse than that of the teenagers (Brigham, Van Verst, and Bothwell 1986). Contrary to what was expected, there was no effect of suggestibility found for any of the age groups (Brigham, Van Verst, and Bothwell 1986). Thierry and Spence (2004) studied the effect of witnessing a real life event on the recall of very young children. Their participants, 86 children ages three to six, watched either a live demonstration of three science experiments or a video of the same experiments. Immediately after they watched the demonstrations, the children were asked to recall what they saw, and they were asked some misleading questions (Thierry and Spence 2004). The younger children (the three- and four-year olds) who saw the video were not as accurate in freely recalling descriptive information as their peers, who witnessed the live action, or any of the older children (the five- and six-year-olds). Overall, children who witnessed the actual demonstrations were more resistant to misleading information than the children who saw the video. This is very promising news for forensic psychologists, who fear that children will be swayed by misleading questions. What about events that actually happen to the children themselves Are these events more memorable than events that are observed Lindberg, Jones, Collard, and Thomas (2001) examined the effects of direct experience on recall of an event. Their study compared the eyewitness testimonies of five-year-old children who received a painful inoculation with those of children who watched the inoculations on videotape. All the children were asked both leading and non-leading questions about the experience immediately after the event, 20 min later, and 1 month later. Children who actually received the shots had a greater recall of the stressful shot experience than did the observers immediately after the experiment, and one month later, they were more resistant to forgetting (Lindberg, Jones, Collard, and Thomas 2001). However, the control group showed a greater recall for things that were not directly related to the stressful event. For example, they were better able to recall the color of the nurse's shoes (Lindberg, Jones, Collard, and Thomas 2001). Interestingly, the size of the needle was greatly exaggerated in the minds of the children who received the shot (Lindberg, Jones, Collard, and Thomas 2001). These findings have great implications for child eyewitness testimony in forensic psychology. Children who undergo stressful events, such as abuse, may have highly accurate memories of the event, but they may also tend to exaggerate certain aspects of the experience. It is possible that leading questions from the interviewers may cause children to remember things that did not happen, or to exaggerate things that did happen. White, Leichtman, and Ceci (1997) investigated the effects of suggestion and misinformation on children's verbal recall of events, and they found that memories of events that were physically experienced were more resistant to suggestion than memories of events that were merely observed (White, Leichtman, and Ceci 1997). Also, children were more susceptible to misleading questions about non-occurring bizarre events than they were to misleading questions about common events (White, Leichtman, and Ceci 1997). The effects of repeated interviews (two interviews in two months) were also studied, and it was found that the interviewers were able to influence the younger (mean age of 4 years) children's stories more than they were the older (mean age of 5 years) children's stories (White, Leichtman, and Ceci 1997). For both age groups, accuracy of recall declined significantly over time (White, Leichtman, and Ceci 1997). This, too, has numerous implications for the use of children's eyewitness testimony in trials. For the most accurate representation of the truth, it may be necessary to record a statement from a child directly after an event occurs, rather than waiting for the trial (Flin and Boon 1992). Larsson, Granhag, and Spjut (2003) also examined children's recall of an unusual event over time, although the children they tested were much older - 10 and 11 years old. In this study, the children were shown a video of a performance by a professional fakir. Half of the children were asked to recall information about what they saw after seven days, while the other half were interviewed after six months (Larsson, Granhag, and Spjut 2003). The children who were interviewed after a week remembered significantly more than the children who were interviewed after six months (Larsson, Granhag, and Spjut 2003). Perhaps an even more important finding is that children who were reminded of the initial viewing conditions showed significantly better recall than the children who were not reminded, regardless of when they were interviewed (Larsson, Granhag, and Spjut 2003). This evidence lends even more credence to the idea of interviewing children directly after an event has taken place, or at least interviewing the children in a similar environment to the one in which the event took place. Certain cues in the environment may trigger memories that would otherwise be lost. Bjorklund, Cassel, Bjorklund, et al (2000) also found evidence for "context dependence on memory performance." Adults and children, ages five and seven, were shown a video of a theft. Then they were told to freely recall the scene, and were asked a series of either misleading or non-leading questions (Bjorklund, Cassel, Bjorklund, et. al 2000). After two days, the subjects were interviewed again, either by the same person or a different person. As in other studies, the results indicated that recall ability increases with age, as does proneness to suggestibility. Regardless of the subject's age, recognition performance was enhanced by the presence of the same interviewer in both sessions. Both children and adults who were interviewed by a different person in the second session were more easily swayed by the misleading information, and were more likely to make incorrect identifications. This finding is of the utmost importance when considering children's testimony in the courts because they are often interviewed by more than one person. Finally, it is important to note that a child's individual personality may also have an effect on the accuracy of their testimony, as Roebers and Schneider (2001b) discovered. A large sample of 6-, 8-, and 10-year-olds were included in this study. Teacher perceptions of the children's intelligence and shyness were correlated with the children's recall of an observed (filmed) robbery and their susceptibility to leading questions. This same procedure was repeated three weeks later. The children responded incorrectly more often to the unbiased questions than to the misleading ones. This could be due to the fact the misleading questions required a simple yes or no answer, while the unbiased questions required a whole sentence (Roebers and Schneider 2001b). However, overall accuracy was higher in the unbiased condition because children were more likely to skip an answer (Roebers and Schneider 2001b). Roebers and Schneider (2001b) also found "a significant [positive] influence of intelligence on free recall, but not on suggestibility, and a significant [negative] influence of shyness on the accuracy of cued recall." Shy children proved to be much more suggestible than their outgoing peers (Roebers and Schneider 2001b). When dealing with a particularly shy child, then, it is important for an interviewer to not be overly leading in his/her questions, so that the most truthful answer will come out. Shapiro, Blackford, and Chen (2005) also found evidence suggesting that an individual's temperament may influence their ability to be swayed by misleading information. Children, ages six to seven and nine to ten, and adults were shown a video of a bicycle theft that occurred at a zoo. All subjects were asked questions about the bicycle's description, the action, and a physical description of the actors. Both misleading and non-leading questions were given. The children and adults were also asked to complete a temperament questionnaire. The older children and adults showed significantly better recall for the descriptive information than the younger children. Additionally, the older children and adults were not as susceptible to misinformation as were the younger children, although this effect was mediated somewhat by certain temperamental characteristics, such as attentional problems and social compliance issues. Even adults and older children, whose cognitive abilities are more developed, have a more difficult time remembering accurately if their temperament is such that they are apt to seek social approval by agreeing to suggestions. Over the years, much has been learned about the use of children's eyewitness testimony. From the above research, it is clear that children are capable of telling the truth, even though they may not understand all the reasons why they are required to tell the truth. However, there are many factors that may negatively affect children's abilities to recall information accurately, including the passage of time and the presence of misinformation in the interviewer's questions. As noted above, interviewers must be extremely careful in questioning children, and even adults, with certain personality characteristics. Some people are so eager to please that they will say anything that they believe an interviewer wants to hear. Fortunately, if an event has actually happened to a child - which is usually the case in criminal abuse cases - even very young children are able to resist the misleading information and recall the experience accurately. Prosecutors and forensic psychologists need not fear using the testimony of child eyewitnesses; however, great caution should be used when deciding how, and when, to interview them and what questions to ask. References Bjorklund, D.F., Cassel, W.S., Bjorklund, B.R., Brown, R.D., Park, C.L., Ernst, K., & Owen, F.A. (2000). Social demand characteristics in children's and adults' eyewitness memory and suggestibility: The effect of different interviewers on free recall and recognition. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 14, 421-433. Brigham, J.C., Van Verst, M., & Bothwell, R.K. (1986). Accuracy of children's eyewitness identifications in a field setting. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 7(4), 295-306. Flin, R. & Boon, J. (1992). The effect of a five-month delay on children's and adults' eyewitness memory. British Journal of Psychology, 83(3), 323-336. Goodman, G.S. & Schaaf, J.M. (1997). Over a decade of research on children's eyewitness testimony: What have we learned Where do we go from here Applied Cognitive Psychology, 11, S5-S20. Larsson, A.S., Granhag, P.S., & Spjut, E. (2003). Children's recall and the cognitive interview: Do the positive effects hold over time Applied Cognitive Psychology, 17, 203-214. Lindberg, M.A., Jones, S., Collard, L., M., & Thomas, S.W. (2001). Similarities and differences in eyewitness testimonies of children who directly versus vicariously experience stress. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 162(3), 314-333. Perner, J. (1997). Children's competency in understanding the role of a witness: Truth, lies, and moral ties. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 11, S21-S35. Roebers, C.M. & Schneider, W. (2001b). Individual differences in children's eyewitness recall: The influence of intelligence and shyness. Applied Developmental Science, 5(1), 9-20. Roebers, C.M. & Schneider, W. (2001a). Memory for an observed event in the presence of prior misinformation: Developmental patterns of free recall and identification accuracy. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 19, 507-524. Shapiro, L.R., Blackford, C., & Chen, C.F. (2005). Eyewitness memory for a simulated misdemeanor crime: The role of age and temperament in suggestibility. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 19, 267-289. Thierry, K.L. & Spence, M.J. (2000). A real-life event enhances the accuracy of preschoolers' recall. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 18, 297-309. White, T. L., Leichtman, M.D., & Ceci, S.J. (1997). The good, the bad, and the ugly: Accuracy, inaccuracy, and elaboration in preschoolers' reports about a past event. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 11, S37-S54. Read More