Amye R. Warren

Inducing resistance to suggestibility in children

Thirty 7-year-olds, 30 12-year-olds, and 39 adults were administered the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale, which consists of a story followed by 20 questions, 15 of which are misleading. After subjects were told that their answers were not all correct, the questions were readministered to look for “shifts.” Approximately half of the subjects in each age group had been warned that the questions were difficult or tricky and that they should only answer with what they confidently remembered. Results indicated that younger children recalled less of the story and were more likely to acquiesce to leading questions than older children and adults. Children also changed more of their answers upon the second questioning. Recall was negatively correlated with both acquiescence to leading questions and likelihood of changing answers, even within age groups. The warning significantly reduced the effect of misleading questions across all age groups.

Do Children "DRM" Like Adults? False Memory Production in Children

The Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm was used to investigate developmental trends in accurate and false memory production. In Experiment 1, DRM lists adjusted to be more consistent with childrens vocabulary were used with 2nd graders, 8th graders, and college students. Accurate and false recall and recognition increased with age, but semantic information appeared to be available to all age groups. Experiment 2 created a set of child-generated lists based on the free associations by a group of 3rd graders to critical items. The child-generated associates were different from those generated by adults; long and short versions of the child-generated lists were therefore presented to 2nd, 5th, and 8th graders and college students in Experiment 3. Second graders exhibited few false memories, whereas 5th graders were similar to adults in low-demand conditions and more similar to younger children in high-demand conditions. Findings are discussed in terms of developmental changes in automatic and effortful processing and the use of semantic networks.

Research on Children's Suggestibility Implications for the Investigative Interview

The authors review research on childrens suggestibility as it applies to the investigative sexual abuse interview. They focus on identifying the optimal conditions for securing an account of a childs remembered experience that will be equally or more reliable than that of an adult. The discussion is divided into four major sections, corresponding to the questions of how, when, where, and by whom a child witness should be interviewed to diminish potential distortions and enhance the trustworthiness of the childs remembered account.

Perceptions of Repressed Memories: A Reappraisal

College students read a trial summary of a sexual abuse case. The victim in the case either claimed that (a) her memory for the abuse had been repressed for 20 years and only recently recovered during therapy, or (b) she consciously remembered the abuse for 20 years but never discussed it until recently in therapy. Participants were significantly more likely to convict the defendant when the testimony was described as nonrepressed (67%) versus repressed (58%). This effect was not modified by the age of the victim at the time the alleged abuse occurred (either 3, 8, or 13 years of age), although the younger and older victims were significantly less believable than the 8-year-old victim. Compared to female participants, male participants were significantly less likely to convict the defendant and rated the victim as significantly less believable. These findings are discussed in the context of recent research on juror reactions to repressed memory testimony.

Age differences in criteria-based content analysis scores in typical child sexual abuse interviews

Abstract Criteria-Based Content Analysis (CBCA) by Steller and Koehnken [Psychological methods in criminal investigation and evidence (1989) 217. New York: Springer.] is used to help determine the veracity of allegations of child sexual abuse by reference to criteria theorized to be present more often in true statements. Studies generally show that older children meet more criteria, indicating potential problems in applying CBCA equally well across the age range. The present study examined 104 actual child sexual abuse interviews with children age 2–14 years (M=6.5). Two trained raters, blind to the childrens ages, evaluated each interview for the original 19 CBCA criteria. Data were coded using various methods, some of which gave children credit for reporting criteria spontaneously or when prompted by the interviewer. For all coding methods, age was significantly correlated with 12 or more criteria, and with total CBCA scores. The youngest children never reported seven criteria, even when interviewer prompting was taken into account. Therefore, many of the criteria may not be useful in typical interviews with children across a wide age range, because they either are rarely present or they are highly correlated with age.

Using witness confidence can impair the ability to detect deception

Prior research has shown that jurors rely on confidence in discriminating between accurate and inaccurate testimonies despite the weak relationship between the two. The purpose of this study is to learn if truth seekers also use confidence in judging truthfulness. In two studies, participants were either not given instructions regarding witness confidence or were told not to use witness confidence, and then they were asked to rate the believability of the videotaped testimony of four witnesses who varied in confidence and truthfulness. Regardless of the instructions, participants did rely on confidence and rated highly confident testimonies as more believable. They also rated false testimonies as significantly more believable than true statements.

The utility of perspecta 3D volumetric display for completion of tasks

This paper explores the hypothesis that the depth cues and display quality of a 3D volumetric display provides advantages for learning simple tasks. Experimental data generated by human subjects using the Perspecta 3D Volumetric Display are compared to like data generated using a 2D flat screen liquid crystal display (LCD). These data show that the Perspecta display provides advantages over the LCD display with respect to peak performance of simple tasks.