Children report suggested events even when interviewed in a non-suggestive manner: what are its implications for credibility assessment?

An important question in the legal context is how suggested statements about fictitious events develop over a course of various interviews. Sixty-seven first-graders were interviewed four times about one real and one fictitious event, applying various suggestive techniques. A fifth, non-suggestive, interview was conducted by blind experts. Over the course of the interviews there was a considerable increase in assents to the fictitious events. Moreover, few significant differences in criteria-based content analysis-criteria were revealed between true and fictitious statements in the fifth interview. Accordingly, experts had difficulties in discriminating between true and suggested accounts. Furthermore, several children were convinced of the truth of their reports, even after having been partially debriefed in a sixth interview. Implications for statement validity assessment are discussed. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.