Fact or Fiction? Adults' Ability to Judge Children's Memory Reports
Date
2015
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Publisher
California State University Northridge
Abstract
This study examined adults’ ability to discern children’s true and false memory reports. Jury-eligible community members (N = 329) watched video-clips from children’s interviews about a memory event involving a secret and rated various attributes related to children’s perceived cognitive ability and honesty. Video-clips were divided into eight experimental conditions based on event type (secret, no secret), child response (report, denial) and child age (5-6 years, 7-8 years). Overall, adults were more likely to believe reports over denials, but they were likely to be misled by both false reports and false denials. When children were asked to keep a secret, adults believed children who reported more than those who incorrectly denied, but when children were not asked to keep a secret, adults believed children who falsely reported more than those who accurately denied. This presents a problem for the legal system. If jurors are unable to correctly assess the accuracy of children’s statements, there are serious risks for the miscarriage of justice in child maltreatment cases. (author Abstract)
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Keywords
child witness, truthfulness, deception, testimony, research, credibility
Citation
Gonzalez, S. (2016). Fact or Fiction? Adults' Ability to Judge Children's Memory Reports (Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Northridge).