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The current study evaluated the benefits of free-recall, cognitive load, and closedended questions on children's (ages 6 to 11; N = 147) true and false eyewitness disclosures. Children witnessed an experimenter find a stranger's wallet and were then asked to make a false denial, false accusation, true denial, or true accusation regarding an alleged theft. Overall, the free-recall question resulted in longer, more forthcoming and more detailed disclosures from older children and those who made a truthful accusation; however, children under the age of 9 and lie-tellers mostly relied on the closed-ended questions to discuss the theft. Although the cognitive load questions resulted in newly recalled information, there were no significant narrative differences between true and false statements on these questions. These findings suggest that forensic professionals should consider a child's developmental level, statement veracity, and disclosure-type (denial vs. accusation) when examining the efficacy of these commonly used questioning strategies.

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This study examines how children's age, gender and interviewer gender affected children's testimony after witnessing a theft. Children (N ¼ 127, age ¼ 6-11 years) witnessed an experimenter (E1) find money, which he/she may/may not have taken. E1 then asked the children to falsely deny that the theft occurred, falsely accuse E1 of taking the money, or tell the truth when interviewed by a second experimenter. Falsely denying or falsely accusing influenced children's forthcomingness and quality of their testimony. When accusing, boys were significantly more willing than girls to disclose about the theft earlier and without being asked directly. When truthfully accusing, children gave lengthier testimony to same-gendered adults. When denying, children were significantly more willing to disclose the theft earlier to male interviewers than to females. As children aged, they were significantly less likely to lie, more likely to disclose earlier when accusing, and give lengthier and more consistent testimony.