The video suggestibility scale for children: how generalizable is children's performance to other measures of suggestibility?

This study explored the generalizability of the Video Suggestibility Scale for Children (VSSC), which was developed by Scullin and colleagues (Scullin & Ceci, 2001; Scullin & Hembrooke, 1998) as a tool for discriminating among children (aged three to five years) who have different levels of suggestibility. The VSSC consists of two subscales; Yield (a measure of children's willingness to acquiesce to misleading questions) and Shift (a measure of children's tendency to change their responses after feedback from the interviewer). Children's (N = 77) performance on each of the subscales was compared with their performance using several other measures of suggestibility. These measures included children's willingness to assent to a false event as well as the number of false interviewer suggestions and false new details that the children provided when responding to cued-recall questions about an independent true-biased and an independent false (non-experienced) event. An independent samples t-test revealed that those children who assented to the false event generated higher scores on the Yield measure. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that Yield was a significant predictor of the number of false details reported about the false activity, but not the true-biased activity. There was no significant relationship between the Shift subscale and any of the dependent variables. The potential contribution of the VSSC for forensic researchers and practitioners is discussed.     

Developmental differences in the effects of repeated interviews and interviewer bias on young children's event memory and false reports

The present study investigated developmental differences in the effects of repeated interviews and interviewer bias on children's memory and suggestibility. Three- and 5-year-olds were singly or repeatedly interviewed about a play event by a highly biased or control interviewer. Children interviewed once by the biased interviewer after a long delay made the most errors. Children interviewed repeatedly, regardless of interviewer bias, were more accurate and less likely to falsely claim that they played with a man. In free recall, among children questioned once after a long delay by the biased interviewer, 5-year-olds were more likely than were 3-year-olds to claim falsely that they played with a man. However, in response to direct questions, 3-year-olds were more easily manipulated into implying that they played with him. Findings suggest that interviewer bias is particularly problematic when children's memory has weakened. In contrast, repeated interviews that occur a short time after a to-be-remembered event do not necessarily increase children's errors, even when interviews include misleading questions and interviewer bias. Implications for developmental differences in memory and suggestibility are discussed.     

Arousal at encoding,arousal at retrieval,interviewer support,and children's memory for a mild stressor

The relations among children's physiological arousal at encoding and retrieval, interviewer‐provided social support and children's memory for a mild stressor were examined in 109 five‐ and six‐year‐olds. The children came to a research laboratory and watched a fear eliciting video clip. A week later, their memory for the video clip was tested by either a supportive or nonsupportive interviewer. While watching the video and completing the memory interview, children's heart rate was monitored. Increased heart rate at encoding was associated with fewer incorrect responses. In contrast, increased heart rate at retrieval was associated with poorer memory, but only when the interviewer was nonsupportive. Heart rate was unrelated to memory when the interviewer was supportive. Results suggest that arousal at encoding and retrieval have different implications for children's memory for a mild stressor, particularly in nonsupportive interview contexts. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Measurement of individual differences in children's suggestibility across situations

The authors attempted to use scores on the Video Suggestibility Scale for Children (VSSC, M. H. Scullin & S. J. Ceci, 2001) to predict 50 preschool children's performance during a field study in which they were interviewed suggestively 4 times about both a true event and a suggested event. Among the 25 children over age 4 years 6 months, tendencies on the VSSC to respond affirmatively to suggestive questions ("yield"), change answers in response to negative feedback ("shift"), and the sum of these ("total suggestibility") were all related to lack of accuracy about the true event in the field study and to both accuracy and lack of accuracy about the suggested event. Results support a 2-factor model of suggestibility.     

How interviewers' nonverbal behaviors can affect children's perceptions and suggestibility

We conducted two studies to examine how interviewers' nonverbal behaviors affect children's perceptions and suggestibility. In the first study, 42 8- to 10-year-olds watched video clips showing an interviewer displaying combinations of supportive and nonsupportive nonverbal behaviors and were asked to rate the interviewer on six attributes (e.g., friendliness, strictness). Smiling received high ratings on the positive attributes (i.e., friendly, helpful, and sincere), and fidgeting received high ratings on the negative attributes (i.e., strict, bored, and stressed). For the second study, 86 8- to 10-year-olds participated in a learning activity about the vocal chords. One week later, they were interviewed individually about the activity by an interviewer adopting either the supportive (i.e., smiling) or nonsupportive (i.e., fidgeting) behavior. Children questioned by the nonsupportive interviewer were less accurate and more likely to falsely report having been touched than were those questioned by the supportive interviewer. Children questioned by the supportive interviewer were also more likely to say that they did not know an answer than were children questioned by the nonsupportive interviewer. Participants in both conditions gave more correct answers to questions about central, as opposed to peripheral, details of the activity. Implications of these findings for the appropriate interviewing of child witnesses are discussed.     

Assessing the effects of misinformation on children's recall: how and when makes a difference

In two experiments children aged between 4 and 5 years and 7 and 8 years, respectively, participated in a real‐life event and were exposed to misleading questions immediately afterwards. The effects of variables relating to both the presentation of the misinformation and to the assessment of suggestibility were examined both immediately and following delays of 1 week (Experiment 1) or both 1 week and 1 month (Experiment 2). Older children were less suggestible than younger. Children were less suggestible when suggestibility was assessed in recall questions rather than misleading questions, less suggestible when information was central rather than peripheral and when the misinformation contradicted rather than supplemented the original event, and less suggestible over time in the absence of further suggestions. Providing cues had a small effect in enhancing resistance to the misinformation, but only when children were tested immediately. Embedding suggestions in a narrative context and repeating suggestions within a session led to greater suggestibility for both age groups, and repeating suggestions following a 1‐month delay had a particularly marked effect for the younger children. These findings are consistent with the view that suggestibility effects depend on the strength of the memory trace for the original information as well as that for the suggestion. How suggestibility is assessed is, however, also important and children's responses to misleading questions may not reflect their memory for the original event. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Social demand characteristics in children's and adults' eyewitness memory and suggestibility: the effect of different interviewers on free recall and recognition

Shortly after viewing a video of a theft, 5‐ and 7‐year‐old children and adults were interviewed with free recall and either misleading or unbiased‐leading questions. After a 2‐day delay, participants were interviewed with free recall and recognition questions administered by either the same or a different interviewer. Results from day 1 replicate previous findings with levels of recall and resistance to suggestibility increasing with age. Counter to predictions, correct recognition performance on day 2 was greater for some participants interviewed by the same as opposed to a different interviewer, and incorrect recognition was greater for all groups of participants for those interviewed by a different as opposed to the same interviewer. Results are discussed in terms of the role of context dependence on memory performance. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effects of discrete emotions on young children's suggestibility

Two experiments investigated the effects of sadness, anger, and happiness on 4- to 6-year-old children's memory and suggestibility concerning story events. In Experiment 1, children were presented with 3 interactive stories on a video monitor. The stories included protagonists who wanted to give the child a prize. After each story, the child completed a task to try to win the prize. The outcome of the child's effort was manipulated in order to elicit sadness, anger, or happiness. Children's emotions did not affect story recall, but children were more vulnerable to misleading questions about the stories when sad than when angry or happy. In Experiment 2, a story was presented and emotions were elicited using an autobiographical recall task. Children responded to misleading questions and then recalled the story for a different interviewer. Again, children's emotions did not affect the amount of story information recalled correctly, but sad children incorporated more information from misleading questions during recall than did angry or happy children. Sad children's greater suggestibility is discussed in terms of the differing problem-solving strategies associated with discrete emotions.     

What the stories children tell can tell about their memory: narrative skill and young children's suggestibility

The authors examined the relation between children's narrative ability, which has been identified as an important contributor to memory development, and suggestibility. Across 2 studies, a total of 112 preschool-aged children witnessed a staged event and were subsequently questioned suggestively. Results from Study 1 indicated that children's ability to provide a high-quality narrative of the event was related to resistance to suggestive questions, and narrative ability appeared to supersede age as a predictor of such resistance. In Study 2, children's general language and narrative abilities were measured in addition to their ability to produce a high-quality narrative about the target event. These results replicated Study 1's findings that children's ability to produce a high-quality narrative of a previously experienced event predicted resistance to suggestion. However, the quality of children's autobiographical memory narratives predicted shifting from denial to assent. Findings are considered in light of narrative's role in memory development and underlying mechanisms that may explain children's suggestibility.     

Individual and developmental differences in eyewitness recall and suggestibility in children with intellectual disabilities

This study examined two key issues: (1) whether there were developmental improvements in eyewitness memory performance for children with intellectual disabilities (ID); and (2) whether standardised measures of cognitive ability and suggestibility would relate to eyewitness recall and suggestibility. Children with ID and age‐matched controls (ages 8/9 and 12 years) watched a video of a crime and were asked a range of open‐ended and specific questions about the event in a subsequent interview. Free recall increased between the two age levels for children with and without ID, but at a faster rate for those without ID. For other question types, differences in performance between children with and without ID were far more marked than age differences. Standardised measures of interrogative suggestibility (Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale, GSS), verbal IQ, non‐verbal IQ, mental age and speed of information processing were related to eyewitness performance. In particular, higher eyewitness recall scores (free recall, non‐leading specific questions) were related to higher scores on the standardised GSS free recall measure; and higher eyewitness suggestibility scores were related to higher scores on the standardised GSS suggestibility measures. Mental age was a better predictor of performance on a range of eyewitness memory question types than verbal or non‐verbal IQ; and speed of information processing showed some relationships with eyewitness performance. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Does the nature of the experience influence suggestibility? A study of children's event memory

Two experiments examined the effects of event modality on children's memory and suggestibility. In Experiment 1, 3- and 5-year-old children directly participated in, observed, or listened to a narrative about an event. In an interview immediately after the event, free recall was followed by misleading or leading questions and, in turn, test recall questions. One week later children were reinterviewed. In Experiment 2, 4-year-old children either participated in or listened to a story about an event, either a single time or to a criterion level of learning. Misleading questions were presented either immediately or 1 week after learning, followed by test recall questions. Five-year-old children were more accurate than 3-year-olds and those participating were more accurate than those either observing or listening to a narrative. However, method of assessment, level of event learning, delay to testing, and variables relating to the misled items also influenced the magnitude of misinformation effects.     

Event frequency and children's suggestibility: a study of cued recall responses

Research examining the effect of repeated experience on children's suggestibility for particular kinds of information has produced differing results. In one study, responses to recognition questions revealed heightened suggestibility for variable details in children who repeatedly experienced an event compared to children who experienced an event once. In other studies, no such effect was found with cued recall. In this study, 4–5‐year old children engaged in one or four play sessions. Children were later given a biasing interview wherein half of the details were incorrectly represented. Children were then given a final memory test using free and cued recall prompts that was preceded by one of three instruction types: no special instructions, moderate instructions, or opposition instructions. Children in the repeated‐event condition were more suggestible than those in the single‐event condition, regardless of instructions. No significant differences in suggestibility were found across instructions conditions. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The impact of experienced versus non‐experienced suggestions on children's recall of repeated events

Three experiments were conducted to test the proposition that children's suggestibility about an occurrence of a repeated event is heightened when an interviewer suggests false details that were experienced in non‐target occurrences of the event as opposed to new details that never occurred. In each experiment, children participated in a repeated event during which specific items varied each time (e.g. the children always got a sticker but the theme of the sticker was different in each occurrence). Separate biasing and memory interviews were then conducted. In Experiment 1, the interviewer merely suggested that the false details might have occurred in the event. In the remaining experiments, the suggested details were clearly linked to the target occurrence with either a contextual or temporal cue. The potential moderating effect of the child's age (Experiment 1) and the retention interval (Experiments 1 and 2) were also examined. Consistent with the initial hypothesis, suggestions about experienced (non‐target) details were more likely to be repeated by the children compared to suggestions about non‐experienced details. In Experiments 2 and 3, experienced suggestions were also more likely to inhibit children's recall of the target occurrence. The relevance and generalizability of these findings to the legal setting are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Gating Out Misinformation: Can Young Children Follow Instructions to Ignore False Information?

The current study investigated the effects of misinformation on children's memory reports after practice with the logic-of-opposition instruction at time of test. Four- and 6-year-old children participated in a play event in Session 1. During a two-week delay, parents presented their children with either misinformation or correct information about the play event. Prior to a memory interview in Session 2, some misled children were given a developmentally appropriate logic-of-opposition instruction to not report information provided by their parents. Results indicated that children were misled by the incorrect information, but that the logic-of-opposition instruction aided in the children's retrieval of the original memory, particularly for the 6-year-olds. Implications of the results for memory malleability and social demand effects in children are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Memory and suggestibility in maltreated children: age,stress arousal,dissociation, and psychopathology

The present study was designed to assess children's memory and suggestibility in the context of ongoing child maltreatment investigations. One hundred eighty-nine 3-17-year-olds involved in evaluations of alleged maltreatment were interviewed with specific and misleading questions about an anogenital examination and clinical assessment. For the anogenital examination, children's stress arousal was indexed both behaviorally and physiologically. For all children, individual-difference data were gathered on intellectual and short-term memory abilities, general psychopathology, and dissociative tendencies. Interviewers' ratings were available for a subset of children concerning the amount of detail provided in abuse disclosures. Results indicated that general psychopathology, short-term memory, and intellectual ability predicted facets of children's memory performance. Older compared to younger children evinced fewer memory errors and greater suggestibility resistance. Age was also significantly related to the amount of detail in children's abuse disclosures. Neither dissociation nor stress arousal significantly predicted children's memory. Implications for understanding maltreated children's eyewitness memory are discussed.     

Children's false memory and true disclosure in the face of repeated questions

The current study was designed to investigate children's memory and suggestibility for events differing in valence (positive or negative) and veracity (true or false). A total of 82 3- and 5-year-olds were asked repeated questions about true and false events, either in a grouped order (i.e., all questions about a certain event asked consecutively) or in a nongrouped order (i.e., questions about a certain event were interspersed with questions about other events). Interviewer gender was also varied. Individual differences, including attachment style, inhibition, and behavioral adjustment, were examined as potential predictors of memory and suggestibility. Results revealed significant age, valence, and veracity effects on children's memory reports. Path analysis demonstrated that individual differences in behavioral problems and inhibitory ability predicted children's provision of inaccurate information. Implications for psychological theory and legal application are discussed.     

Source-monitoring training facilitates preschoolers' eyewitness memory performance

Preschool children are more susceptible to misleading postevent information than are older children and adults. One reason for young children's suggestibility is their failure to monitor the source of their memories, as in, for example, discriminating whether an event was seen live versus on television. The authors investigated whether source-monitoring training would decrease preschoolers' suggestibility. Thirty-six 3-4-year-olds observed target live and video events and were then given source-monitoring or recognition (control) training on nontarget events. Following training, all children answered 24 misleading and nonmisleading target-event questions. Children given source-monitoring training were more accurate than control group children in response to misleading and nonmisleading yes-no questions and in response to nonmisleading, open-ended questions. Implications for strategy development, dual representation, and child witness interviewing are discussed.     

Dividing attention during a witnessed event increases eyewitness suggestibility

Real‐life witnesses often encounter complex situations that may prevent them from devoting their full attention to encoding forensically‐relevant information about the event. Although prior research has demonstrated that divided attention can impair aspects of event memory, the current study examined the effect of attention during encoding of the event on participants' memory for the source of post‐event misleading information. Participants first viewed a slide sequence depicting a theft under full or divided attention conditions. Subsequently, they answered questions about the event that included misleading information, and finally received a source test. Results revealed that Divided Attention participants showed poorer memory for event items and were more likely to misattribute post‐event misinformation to the event than were Full Attention participants. The findings suggest that typical laboratory conditions (which allow full deployment of attentional resources during encoding) may underestimate the suggestibility of witnesses. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Stress at encoding,context at retrieval,and children’s narrative content

Research concerning the relations between stress and children’s memory has been primarily correlational and focused on memory volume and accuracy. In the current study, we experimentally manipulated 7- and 8-year-olds’ and 12- to 14-year-olds’ experienced stress during a to-be-remembered event to examine the effects of stress on the content of their memory. We further manipulated the degree of interviewer support at retrieval to determine whether it moderated the effects of stress at encoding on memory. Children’s age, gender, stress at encoding, and interviewer support all influenced the type of information included in their narrative reports. Most notably, across ages, children who experienced a more stressful event but were questioned in a supportive manner provided the largest ratio of terms representing internal states such as those about cognitions and emotions. Results suggest that how children process past events may be influenced by both the nature of the event itself and the context within which it is recalled.     

Social influence and children's event recall and suggestibility

The present study sheds light on interactions between cognitive and social factors affecting children's memory performance and suggestibility in event recall tasks. We examined 251 children, aged 8, 9 and 10 years, and applied a well-known paradigm from social psychology, that is, the social influence of misleading questions was experimentally manipulated through the presence and answering behaviour of an adult confederate. Children's answers about the content of a previously watched film to misleading questions, their accurate statements in their subsequent free recall, as well as performance in a recognition test were assessed. The design also included two control conditions, one in which children answered misleading questions without an adult confederate, and a second one in which no misleading interview was administered but only free recall and recognition. The results document large recall and suggestibility differences between the conditions. Participants of the strong social influence condition answered more conformably to misleading questions and showed a larger effect of memory contagion in recognition. Moreover, there were strong age-related increases in the ability to rely on one's own recollection rather than parroting the confederate's answers. Strong social influence also differentially affected the occurrence of false statements in free recall and errors in the recognition test depending on the children's age.