Pre-trial therapy for child witnesses in cases of sexual abuse: A scoping literature review

Globally, child complainants of sexual abuse are expected to testify in criminal proceedings and in some countries therapy is delayed until after the child testifies as not to contaminate the child’s version of events. We carried out a scoping review of the literature on the provision of pre-trial therapy to child witnesses in cases of sexual abuse, to identity pertinent practice issues. We searched the following data bases: Academic FileOne, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, eBook (EBSCOHost); HeinOnline, OAPEN Library, PscyhARTICLS, PscyhINFO; SocINDEX, ScienceDirect, Google Scholar, and Scopus. We identified white and grey literature for the period spanning 1980 to 2016. Inclusion criteria included studies published in English, experimental studies, literature reviews, and policy documents relating to the provision of pre-trial therapy for child witnesses in criminal cases of sexual abuse. We discovered that an internationally accepted clear definition of pre-trial therapy is needed to ensure a common understanding thereof amongst all role players. A dearth of empirical studies exists and consequently the possible impact of different forms of therapeutic approaches on the child witness’ testimony is yet to be conclusively determined. In the interim, therapists and other role players should be acutely aware of the impact of different forms of therapy on the child witness’s testimony.     

Eye-tracking data quality as affected by ethnicity and experimental design

Lack of accuracy in eye-tracking data can be critical. If the point of gaze is not recorded accurately and reliably, the information obtained or action executed might be different from what the user intended. This study reports trackability, accuracy, and precision as indicators of eye-tracking data quality as measured at various head positions and light conditions for a sample of participants from three different ethnic groups. It was found that accuracy and precision for Asian participants was worse than that for African and Caucasian participants. No significant differences were found between the latter two ethnic groups. Operating distance had the largest effect on data quality, since it affected all indicators for all ethnic groups. Illumination had no significant effect on accuracy or precision, but the accuracy achieved by African and Caucasian participants was better when the stimulus was presented on a dark background. Large gaze angles proved to be detrimental for trackability for African participants, while accuracy and precision were also affected adversely by larger gaze angles for two of the ethnicities.     

The sound of time: cross-modal convergence in the spatial structuring of time

In a new integration, we show that the visual-spatial structuring of time converges with auditory-spatial left-right judgments for time-related words. In Experiment 1, participants placed past and future-related words respectively to the left and right of the midpoint on a horizontal line, reproducing earlier findings. In Experiment 2, neutral and time-related words were presented over headphones. Participants were asked to indicate whether words were louder on the left or right channel. On critical experimental trials, words were presented equally loud binaurally. As predicted, participants judged future words to be louder on the right channel more often than past-related words. Furthermore, there was a significant cross-modal overlap between the visual-spatial ordering (Experiment 1) and the auditory judgments (Experiment 2), which were continuously related. These findings provide support for the assumption that space and time have certain invariant properties that share a common structure across modalities.     

But for the bad, there would not be good: Grounding valence in brightness through shared relational structures

Light and dark are used pervasively to represent positive and negative concepts. Recent studies suggest that black and white stimuli are automatically associated with negativity and positivity. However, structural factors in experimental designs, such as the shared opposition in the valence (good vs. bad) and brightness (light vs. dark) dimensions might play an important role in the valence-brightness association. In 6 experiments, we show that while black ideographs are consistently judged to represent negative words, white ideographs represent positivity only when the negativity of black is coactivated. The positivity of white emerged only when brightness and valence were manipulated within participants (but not between participants) or when the negativity of black was perceptually activated by presenting positive and white stimuli against a black (vs. gray) background. These findings add to an emerging literature on how structural overlap between dimensions creates associations and highlight the inherently contextualized construction of meaning structures.     

Warning: You are being primed! The effect of a warning on the impact of subliminal ads

As it has been demonstrated that subliminal advertising can affect consumers' decisions – if the ad is goal relevant – the question rises whether consumers are able to shield themselves from subliminal influences. In the present research it was examined whether warning people of the presence of subliminal ads could decrease subliminal advertising effects. In Study 1, it was demonstrated that warning people of subliminal ads indeed diminished priming effects on consumer choice, whereas subliminal advertising effects were replicated for people who were not warned (i.e., people for whom the primed brand was goal relevant were more likely to select it when primed). Study 2 extended these findings, revealing that both participants warned before and after the priming manipulation were less influenced by subliminal brand primes than controls. This suggests that the warning does not decrease participants' sensitivity to the prime, but instead affects the influence of the prime at the behavioral level. Several explanations and implications are discussed.