10 research outputs found
The Impact of Multiple Interviews on the Narrative Coherence, Accuracy and Credibility of Children’s Testimonies
No full textThe lack of forensically meaningful measures of the quality of children’s testimony that can be used in both field and laboratory studies prevents reaching strong conclusions about the impact of multiple interviews. Drawing on theory and research from cognitive science and forensic psychology, a new model of narrative coherence, consisting of the completeness, consistency and connectedness of children’s recall, was developed to assess the quality of testimonies elicited in multiple interviews.The thesis describes three studies evaluating the impact of multiple forensic interviews on the narrative coherence, accuracy and credibility children’s testimony. Study 1 revealed that multiple interviews impact the narrative coherence of forensic testimonies provided by child witnesses positively, through increasing their completeness without decreasing their consistency or connectedness. Children’s age was associated with the completeness and connectedness of their recall. To overcome the limitations of field research, children’s recall of a staged experiment was analysed in Study 2. Children interviewed twice provided equally accurate descriptions as participants interviewed a single time in a control group matched for delay, however, the 1-month delay between interviews resulted in a slight but significant decrease in accuracy. Study 3 aimed to determine whether the benefits of multiple interviews found in Study 1 and Study 2 affect witness credibility. Mock jurors rated the witness in a fictional child abuse case as more reliable and competent and were more likely to convict the defendant when presented with two interviews rather than one. Credibility ratings and verdict decisions were also associated with jurors’ gender and the consistency of the witness testimony.In conclusion, results support the view that multiple interviews provide an effective method of increasing the completeness and credibility of children’s testimony. The accuracy of children’s testimony was found to be compromised by delay, rather than multiple interviews.<br/
Narrative coherence in multiple forensic interviews with child witnesses alleging physical and sexual abuse
No full textThis study investigated the narrative coherence of children's accounts elicited in multiple forensic interviews. Transcriptions of 56 police interviews with 28 children aged 3–14 years alleging physical and sexual abuse were coded for markers of completeness, consistency and connectedness. We found that multiple interviews increased the completeness of children's testimony, containing on average almost twice as much new information as single interviews, including crucial location, time and abuse‐related details. When both contradictions within the same interview and across interviews were considered, contradictions were not more frequent in multiple interviews. The frequency of linguistic markers of connectedness remained stable across interviews. Multiple interviews increase the narrative coherence of children's testimony through increasing their completeness without necessarily introducing contradictions or decreasing causal‐temporal connections between details. However, as ‘ground truth’ is not known in field studies, further investigation of the relationship between the narrative coherence and accuracy of testimonies is required
Children’s elaborated responses to Yes-No questions in forensic interviews about sexual abuse
No full textChildren tend to answer yes-no questions with unelaborated “yes” and “no” responses, but the types of details likely omitted from unelaborated answers have not been explored. This study examined 379 4- to 12-year-olds’ answers to yes-no questions in forensic interviews about CSA (N = 11,187), focusing on age differences in elaborated responses. As expected, older children elaborated more frequently than younger children. Our novel categorization of elaboration types revealed that although there were no age differences in children’s use of nominal corrections (correcting a label), or in emphatic negations (giving forceful denials), older children were more likely to give narrative elaborations (providing additional narrative information), wh-elaborations (answering implicit wh-questions), and qualified elaborations (avoiding potentially misleading implications of unelaborated “yes” and “no” responses). The results suggest that children’s developing understanding of the implied meaning of questions and responses helps to explain age differences in elaborative responses to yes-no questions
Is it time to leave the shopping mall behind? Measurement flaws, plausibility, and external validity of false memory research
No full textUnderstanding child sexual abuse: disclosures, delays, and denials
No full textReviewing the research on children’s disclosure of sexual abuse when questioned by authorities, Lyon et al. demonstrate that initial denial is common among abused children, occurring in about half of cases. The challenge is to determine whether such denials and subsequent allegations are attributable to suggestibility or reluctance. The child’s closeness to the suspect and the supportiveness of the child’s family are important correlates of delay and denial. Interview characteristics associated with disclosure include prior disclosures, whether the child is being asked about abuse for the first time, and characteristics of the interview, including supportiveness and the specific questions asked. Suggestibility does not seem to explain the high rates of denial and delayed disclosure
The impact of multiple interviews on the accuracy and narrative coherence of children’s memories
No full textThis study investigated the accuracy and narrative coherence of children’s accounts of a staged event across two interviews in comparison to a control condition to discern between the effects of repeated recall and delay between interviews. Seventy-six 8–11-year-olds took part in a first aid training session. Half of the children were randomly assigned to be interviewed using open-ended questions twice, one week after the event and five weeks after the event, whilst the other half were interviewed only once, five weeks after the event. Supporting the hypotheses, children reported more details over the course of two interviews than in a single interview either 1-week or 5-weeks after the event, and details that remained consistent across the two interviews were more accurate than reminisced details. The increased completeness of children’s accounts in two interviews was accompanied by an increase in the use of markers of causal-temporal connectedness. The hypothesis regarding the negative effect of delay on the accuracy of children’s testimony was partially supported, as details reported in the first, 1-week interview were more accurate than details in the single 5-week interview. Results demonstrate that multiple interviews can increase the narrative coherence of children’s testimony without decreasing their accuracy
Recanting children’s descriptions of influences and pressures to recant intrafamilial child sexual abuse
No full textThis study examined interviews with 53 4 to 15-year-old children recanting sexual abuse to determine whether they were forthcoming about potential influences and pressures that could have led them to recant. The great majority (87%) of children mentioned one or more influences or pressures. With respect to influences, about half of children mentioned their positive feelings for the suspect, and about a third mentioned negative consequences for the suspect. About 30% disclosed that their immediate family missed the suspect. About half mentioned concerns about separation from their family, and almost 30% discussed negative consequences for their mother. Pressures from others were mentioned by about half of children. They rarely mentioned pressures from the suspect, but over a third disclosed family pressures, most often the lack of maternal support. Over two-thirds of children described feeling guilty and other internal influences. The results provide preliminary support for questioning recanting children about influences and pressures
A systematic examination of actor and trainee interviewer behaviour during Joint Investigative Interviewing Training
No full textThis study is the first systematic examination of trainee interviewer and actor behaviour during Joint Investigative Interviewing Training (JIIT) simulations across two training sites in Scotland. As expected, interviewers were poor at adhering to best practice interview guidelines in the pre-substantive and closure phases of the interviews. Although invitations were used within the range of best practice, they were not used more often and did not elicit more allegation-related details than directive questions. Critically, actors’ responses to invitations were less informative than their responses to all other question types. Furthermore, large differences were observed between the two training sites in the number of questions asked and amount of information elicited by interviewers. Our results show that 1) trainee interviewers are not utilising simulations to practice all required interviewing skills, 2) adult actors are not reinforcing interviewers’ use of invitations as intended, and 3) trainee interviewers are not being afforded the same opportunities to practice their skills due to variation in resources across Scotland. We recommend improvements to the JIIT programme to address these concerns
Difficulties in attorneys' before/after questions in child sexual abuse trials
No full textThis exploratory study examined five potential problems with attorneys’ questions and 5- to 9-year-old children’s responses to before/after questions in 156 child sexual abuse trials. Two problems have received some attention in prior research: the extent to which children were asked to backward sequence through before questions, and order of mention, which considers whether the order in which two events were mentioned in the question matched the order in which the events purportedly occurred. We found that 43% of before/after questions included before, and 55% of questions asking about two events violated order of mention. We also examined three issues involving potential ambiguity that have been overlooked: grain size ambiguity, in which the temporal interval to which before/after refer is unspecified; reference time ambiguity, in which before/after could refer to a prior time or the time when the question is asked; and focal ambiguity, in which the before/after question could be asking about sequence or occurrence. Eighty-four percent of questions exhibited grain size ambiguity, 18% of questions exhibited reference time ambiguity and 40% of questions exhibited focal ambiguity. Overall, 78% of before/after questions were option-posing and 84% of children’s responses to those questions were unelaborated, which makes disambiguation of responses difficult. Even when questions were unambiguous, we found suggestive evidence that words used to specify grain size or reference time created other difficulties for children. The results highlight the need for additional research examining difficulties in before/after questions, and for educating attorneys and others who interview children about subtle difficulties
Low Postseroconversion CD4<SUP>+</SUP> T-cell Level Is Associated with Faster Disease Progression and Higher Viral Evolutionary Rate in HIV-2 Infection
No full textA positive correlation between virus evolutionary rate and disease progression has been shown for human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection. Much less is known about HIV-2, the second causative agent of AIDS. We analyzed 528 HIV-2 env V1-C3 sequences generated from longitudinal plasma samples that were collected from 16 study participants during a median observation time of 7.9 years (interquartile range [IQR], 5.2 to 14.0 years). Study participants were classified as faster or slower disease progressors based on longitudinal CD4+ T-cell data. The HIV-2 evolutionary rate was significantly associated with CD4+ T-cell levels and was almost twice as high among the faster progressors as among the slower progressors. Higher evolutionary rates were accounted for by both synonymous and nonsynonymous nucleotide substitutions. Moreover, slow disease progression was associated with stronger positive selection on HIV-2/SIVsm (simian immunodeficiency virus infecting sooty mangabey) surface-exposed conserved residues. This study demonstrated a number of previously unknown characteristics linking HIV-2 disease progression with virus evolution. Some of these findings distinguish HIV-2 from HIV-1 and may contribute to the understanding of differences in pathogenesis.IMPORTANCE The relationship between HIV evolution and disease progression is fundamental to our understanding of HIV immune control and vaccine design. There are no clear definitions for faster and slower HIV-2 disease progression and for the relationship of the rate of progression with HIV-2 evolution. To address the hypothesis that viral evolution is correlated with disease progression in HIV-2 infection, we determined faster and slower disease progression based on follow-up data from a prospective cohort of police officers in Guinea-Bissau. The analysis showed that although the CD4+ T-cell level and the decline in the level were independently associated with progression to AIDS, only the CD4+ T-cell level or a combined CD4+ T-cell level/decline stratification was associated with the rate of HIV-2 evolution. The HIV-2 evolutionary rate was almost twice as high among the faster progressors as among the slower progressors. Importantly, this report defines previously unknown characteristics linking HIV-2 disease progression with virus evolution.sponsorship: The study was supported by the Department for Research Cooperation (SAREC) at the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) and the Swedish Research Council (no. 350-2012-6628 and 2016-01417 for J.E.; no. 2016-02285 for M.J.; no. 321-2012-3274 for P.M.). J.E. also acknowledges funding from Swedish Society of Medical Research (SA-2016). P.L. acknowledges funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no. 260864. (Department for Research Cooperation (SAREC) at the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida), Swedish Research Council|350-2012-6628, Swedish Research Council|2016-01417, Swedish Research Council|2016-02285, Swedish Research Council|321-2012-3274, Swedish Society of Medical Research (SA-2016), European Union|260864, Swedish Research Council|2016-02285, Swedish Research Council|2016-01417)status: Accepte
