I don't think that's what really happened: the effect of cross-examination on the accuracy of children's reports

In the courtroom, child witnesses must undergo cross-examination. Prior research has shown that children change their original testimony under cross-examination, but the effect of these changes on the accuracy of children's testimony is unknown. The authors examined the effect of cross-examination on the accuracy of 5- and 6-year-old children's (N=46) reports of a contrived event. Consistent with prior research, children made changes to their original responses during cross-examination. Furthermore, these changes occurred irrespective of original accuracy. Finally, prior exposure to misleading information did not affect children's responses to cross-examination. Even children with no prior exposure to misinformation altered their original responses, decreasing their ultimate levels of accuracy. These findings demonstrate that cross-examination style questioning is inappropriate for young children.     

A Developmental Evaluation of Frequency Memory for Actions Presented in Lists,Scripts, and Stories

Although some research suggests that misinformation provided by a co-witness could be more influential than that obtained from other sources, most of this research has compared the effect of co-witness information against non-social forms of misinformation only. To better understand the influence of co-witnesses we compared the influence of co-witness misinformation with the influence of misinformation provided by an interviewer. Across two experiments using the MORI paradigm we found no evidence that a co-witness is particularly influential relative to another social source of post-event misinformation. In fact, the source of the misinformation delivered by our interviewer was less likely to be correctly recalled than the source of the misinformation delivered by a co-witness. There was some evidence that misinformation delivered by both a co-witness and an interviewer has a stronger effect on witnesses' accuracy and confidence than misinformation obtained from either source alone. Finally, our results suggest that the opportunity to provide an early individual memory account might protect against the effect of subsequently-encountered co-witness misinformation. These results have important implications for the way that criminal investigations are conducted.     

The role of repeated interviewing in children's responses to cross‐examination‐style questioning

The negative effect of cross‐examination‐style questioning on children's accuracy is likely to be due to the complex and credibility‐challenging questions that characterize the interview. Given that cross‐examination occurs after at least one prior interview, however, it is equally possible that repeated interviewing per se impairs children's accuracy, and that the questions asked have little bearing on children's responses. To examine this issue, 5‐ and 6‐year‐old children (n= 82) and 9‐ and 10‐year‐old children (n= 103) took part in a surprise event and were then interviewed using an analogue of direct examination. Either 1 week or 6 months later, half of the children were re‐interviewed with an analogue of cross‐examination designed to challenge their direct examination responses. Remaining children were re‐interviewed with the same questions that were asked during direct examination. Children's accuracy decreased following their second interview, irrespective of age or delay; however, delay particularly impacted younger children's second interview performance. Children's accuracy was most impaired following a cross‐examination‐style interview. Overall, cross‐examination‐style questioning appears to be particularly detrimental to obtaining accurate event reports from children.     

Relationships between three auditory inspection time tasks and processing speed

This study investigated the relationship between a spatial auditory inspection time task and previous versions of AIT, as well as the relationships of these tasks with visual inspection time (VIT) and general speediness (Gs). A total of 96 university undergraduates (age mean (M) = 20.0 years, standard deviation (SD) = 4.0 years) completed three AIT tasks, VIT, auditory reaction time (ART) and visual reaction time (VRT), and two Gs marker tests. Auditory inspection time‐spatial (AIT‐S) did not relate to VIT, but it did relate to the Gs marker tests. It also loaded moderately on a Gs factor along with VIT. Neither of the alternate AIT tasks showed any consistent relationships to reaction time (RT) or Gs measures. The AIT‐S task did, however, share substantial variance with its predecessors, suggesting that performance on all AIT tasks relies to some extent on similar processes. Further research is required to determine the nature of these processes.     

A note on erotic arousal value of moving and stationary human forms

For subhuman vertebrates there already exists a huge body of information on male and female courtship behaviour and in many instances the impact of movement patterns on the prospective partner has been assessed. However, little information is available on the erotic impact of human movement patterns.In analysing erotic preferences by means of the phallometric method, moving vs. still pictures has been a factor in a variety of studies. Kolá?ský and Madlafousek (1973) compared the erotic responses of normal and sexually deviant males to filmed courtship behaviour, non-erotic activities and stills of the same female. They found that dynamically presented filmed courtship patterns were more arousing for normal heterosexual males than stills on which no particular activity was shown, and that these stills were more arousing than movie pictures of nonerotic activities.In a study of classical conditioning, McConaghy (1970) found he could not condition positive penile responses to geometric figures when using still pictures of nude females as unconditioned stimuli, but that this was possible when using movies. He concluded that the movie pictures had a greater impact on his Ss than the stills and supported this impression with another study in which he compared responses to movies and stills of nude females (McConaghy, 1973). However, the persons on the movies were not identical with those on the stills and the depicted behavioural configurations varied widely. In the following study, results are reported on the erotic value of a relatively simple movement pattern, namely walking towards the viewer and smiling, vs. a still picture of the same person smiling.     

Getting the Picture: Effects of Sketch Plans and Photographs on Children's,Adolescents' and Adults' Eyewitness Recall

We compared the effects of three types of visual aid on free recall across three age groups in an eyewitness paradigm. Child, adolescent and adult participants (N = 144) viewed a short film depicting a non‐violent crime and, following a brief delay, gave a free‐recall account. Participants then described the event once again, with the aid of their own sketch plan, a provided sketch plan or photograph, or with no visual aid. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and coded for the type and accuracy of information reported. Across all age groups, relative to the control condition, all three visual aids increased the amount of new information reported during the second free‐recall account and helped participants to maintain accuracy. All three visual aids therefore had a positive effect on participants' performance; in a forensic setting, however, witnesses' own sketch plans are likely to be the safest, most easily applied and most time effective.Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Age‐related Differences in the Free‐recall Accounts of Child,Adolescent, and Adult Witnesses

Many researchers have examined the factors that affect children's ability to provide eyewitness evidence, leading to significant reform in policy and practice. In stark contrast, there has been virtually no eyewitness research conducted with adolescents, even though adolescents are still undergoing developmental changes that are likely to affect eyewitness performance. We compared the eyewitness performance of children, adolescents, and adults by showing them a brief film clip depicting a simulated crime and using cognitive interview instructions to elicit free‐recall accounts. Adolescents provided more information than children, but less information than adults. Accuracy did not differ with age. These data suggest that, like children, adolescents could benefit from specialised interview techniques that help them provide more complete accounts. Across all three age groups, individual differences in cognitive functioning contributed to variation in eyewitness performance, and eliciting a second free‐recall account increased the amount of information reported. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The negative effect of cross‐examination style questioning on children's accuracy: older children are not immune

We present data suggesting that the negative effect of cross‐examination style questioning on children's accuracy is not limited to young children. Using an identical paradigm to that used with 5‐ and 6‐year‐olds by Zajac and Hayne in 2003 , we examined the effect of cross‐examination style questioning on 9‐ and 10‐year‐olds' accounts of a prior staged event. Like younger children, 9‐ and 10‐year‐old children made frequent changes to their original responses during cross‐examination style questioning. Although 9‐ and 10‐year‐old children were more likely to change incorrect responses than correct ones, they nonetheless changed over 40% of their correct responses, and cross‐examination still exerted a significant negative effect on their overall accuracy levels. The present findings suggest that although older children appear to be somewhat less vulnerable to cross‐examination style questioning, they are still not immune to the negative effects of this process on the accuracy of their reports. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Auditory speed tasks as potential candidates for the study of cognitive ageing

Speed of information processing is an important cognitive ability. It facilitates the efficient operation of higher order cognitive functions, such as reasoning, and is implicated in various models of cognitive decline. The present study considers the potential benefits of expanding the measurement of processing speed to include the auditory modality. It examines the reliability and factorial structure of a variety of auditory and visual speed tasks in a sample of N = 138 older adults aged between 51 and 82 years. Our findings demonstrate that auditory measures can be used to assess processing speed as indexed by existing widely used tests of this ability. Moreover, the inclusion of auditory tasks significantly increases the relationship between processing speed and general cognitive ability. This novel research provides strong evidence of the suitability of auditory speed tasks for the study of cognitive function in older people, and demonstrates the importance of expanding cognitive measurement to include alternate modalities.