Children's eyewitness memory: effects of participation and forensic context.
We examined effects of participation and forensic context on 4-year-old children's testimony. Children in "participant" and "police" conditions actively participated in games with a "babysitter"; each child in the "observer" condition watched a videotape of a child and the babysitter playing. Eleven days later, children were individually questioned about the event. Before the interview began, children in the police condition talked to a police officer who said the babysitter might have done something bad. Comparison of participant- and observer-condition performance indicated that participation increased free-recall accuracy concerning actions that took place and lowered suggestibility. Comparison of participant- and police-condition performance indicated that forensic context led to increased error in free recall and additional comments to misleading questions. However, forensic context also resulted in higher accuracy on an age-identification task and did not affect children's accuracy in answering abuse-related questions.
Tobey
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State University of New York, Buffalo.
Goodman
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D002650:Child Abuse, Sexual; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D005555:Forensic Psychiatry; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D012737:Sex Factors; D013404:Suggestion; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014705:Verbal Behavior; D014743:Videotape Recording