Mental reinstatement of context: A technique for interviewing child witnesses

Abstract

The effectiveness of mental reinstatement of context as a technique for interviewing child witnesses was examined. Adult, 6-year-olds and 1 I-year-olds viewed a film and were interviewed in one of three conditions; (1) free recall, (2) mental reinstatement of the context in which the film was viewed or (3) a series of specific questions about the film. In terms of correct information recalled, mental reinstatement of context and specific questions produced more correct responses than did free recall. In terms of errors of commission, specific questions produced more responses than either free recall or mental reinstatement of context. Age-related increases in both correct and incorrect responses were found supporting some previous findings. The implications of these results in terms of children's eyewitness memory were discussed, and future research directions were indicated.

Later Maturation of the Beneficial Than the Detrimental Effect of Selective Memory Retrieval

“…Moreover, our results do not conflict with research in which young children were found to use and profit from contextual information (e.g., Dietze & Thomson, 1993;Wilkinson, 1988). In these previous studies, either the contextual information was present throughout the recall phase (as in the case of physical context reinstatement), or specific mental-reinstatement instructions or questions were introduced before the recall phase to reactivate the contextual information.…”

“…From a more applied perspective, the results suggest that in eyewitness situations, in which access to the original encoding context is often impaired, interrogators may indeed trigger children's memory for critical information through guided retrieval of related information. Yet our results also suggest that mainly older children would benefit from such guided retrieval, and that other techniques, such as mental-reinstatement techniques (Dietze & Thomson, 1993), might be necessary to improve eyewitness testimony in younger children. The present findings thus provide important clues and restrictions for the further development and…”

“…Wilkinson (1988) found enhanced event memory in 3-to 5-year-old preschoolers when they were interviewed in the same physical context as that present during event encoding (see also Pipe & Wilson, 1994). In particular, Dietze and Thomson (1993) found improved event memory in 6-and 11-year-olds who were asked to imagine the context in which the events took place (see also Saywitz, Geiselman, & Bornstein, 1992). Thus, even young children may use and profit from contextual information.…”

Sketching to Remember: Episodic Free Recall Task Support for Child Witnesses and Victims with Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…However, the effects of the MRC when used with typically developing children are somewhat mixed. Some studies have found the procedure beneficial when compared to standard interview conditions that do not include context reinstatement (Dietze & Thomson, 1993;Dietze et al, 2008;Dietze et al, 2010;Hayes & Delamothe, 1997;Hershkowitz, Orbach, Lamb, Sternberg, & Horowitz, 2001;Milne & Bull, 2002), while others have failed to find a positive effect (e.g., Darwinkel, Powell & Sharman, 2014;Dietze, Powell & Thomson, 2010;Milne & Bull, 2002).…”

“…Child witnesses have to receive (understand), and then implement (apply) a series of subjective instructions, which require significant language processing capacity and unimpaired attention and concentration abilities (see Dando, 2013;Dietze, & Thomson, 1993). MRC typically takes in excess of 10 minutes to implement, and so for both typically developing children and children with ASD is at best cognitively demanding, although some researchers have reported that it can improve remembering (see Dietze, & Thomson, 1993, although also see Hershkowitz et al, 2001 Dando, 2013;Dando, Wilcock & Milne 2009;Dando, Wilcock, Milne, & Henry, 2009;Dando, Wilcock, Behnkle, & Milne, 2011). Participants interviewed using the Sketch-RC typically performed equal to, or better than, those interviewed using MRC for the amount of correct information elicited, with no increase in the reporting of erroneous items (erroneous information is discrepant from that which occurred in the stimulus).…”