NCJ Number
164793
Journal
Law and Human Behavior Volume: 20 Issue: 5 Dated: (October 1996) Pages: 483-500
Date Published
1996
Length
18 pages
Annotation
This research was designed to learn whether children's relationships with interviewers might influence the accuracy of their eyewitness memory and their ability to make identifications from lineups.
Abstract
In two experiments, kindergarten children (5-year-olds) viewed a slide show that depicted a minor theft. Children were then interviewed by either their own parents or an unfamiliar experimenter with either a target-present or target-absent simultaneous photographic lineup. When lineups were presented by parents, children were less accurate, changed their identifications more often, and were more likely to acquiesce with a suggestion about an alternative identification. Children showed poorer recall of the event when interviewed by a parent in an unstructured interview (Experiment 1); however, no differences were observed when parents and experimenters followed the same script (Experiment 2). Overall, results from the current studies support the notion that children's relationship with the interviewer can be an important influence on their recall of an event and, in particular, on their ability to make accurate identifications from lineups. In addition, the findings show that some parents may be likely to adopt ineffective questioning strategies and that, particularly in the case of identifications, their promptings and suggestions may influence children's recognition decisions. Future studies should investigate the possible benefits of training parents in developmentally appropriate questioning methods. 1 table and 58 references