The effect of parent versus unfamiliar interviewers on children's eyewitness memory and identification accuracy.

Abstract

This research was designed to learn if children's relationships with interviewers might influence the accuracy of their eyewitness memory'and their ability to make identifications from lineups. In two experiments, kindergarten children (5-year-olds) viewed a slide show depicting a minor theft. Children were then interviewed by either their own parent or an unfamiliar experimenter with either a target present or target absent simultaneous photographic lineup. When lineups were presented by parents, children were less accurate, changed their identifications more frequently, and were more likely to acquiesce with a suggestion about an alternative identification. Children showed poorer recall of the event when interviewed by their parent in an unstructured interview (Experiment 1); however, no differences were observed when parents and experimenters followed the same script (Experiment 2). Overall, the results indicate that interviewers can influence the accuracy and consistency of children's eyewitness identifications.Recently, there has been increasing interest in young children's ability to serve as competent eyewitnesses (Ceci,

The Effect of Rapport in Forensic Interviewing

“…Again the results are not supportive of the general hypothesis for the unfamiliar interviewers elicited more accurate information than the parent interviewers (Ricci, Beal & Dekle, 1996). In addition, an early "race effects" study dealt with the issue of rapport through "intelligence testing" of children where the race of the examiner was the same or different (African-American or not) to that of the subjects.…”

Exploring Parent–Child Discussions of Crime and their Influence on Children's Memory

“…These events have generally been fairly innocuous. Furthermore, in the one study that included a theft, a slideshow was used (Ricci et al, 1996). The lack of continuous detail in a slideshow leads one to wonder about its usefulness as a memory stimulus.…”

“…Findings from these studies are mixed. Ricci, Beal, and Dekle (1996) had kindergarten children view a slideshow of a minor theft. These 5-year-olds were then interviewed by either a parent or a trained interviewer.…”

Preschoolers’ credulity toward misinformation from ingroup versus outgroup speakers

“…Previous research demonstrates that 3-to 5-year-olds may fall prey to the suggestive probes of interviewers or act with credulity, deferring to untrue claims or developing false memories based on an interviewer's misleading suggestions (e.g., see Ceci & Bruck, 1993, for a review). A number of factors appear to influence the extent to which a child might be suggestible such as the child's age and cognitive abilities (see Bruck & Melnyk, 2004, for a review) and the characteristics of the interviewer (e.g., a police officer vs. someone else: Tobey & Goodman, 1992; the parent vs. an unfamiliar individual: Ricci, Beal, & Dekle, 1996). The findings from this study point to the possibility that in real-life investigative interviews, children's identification of the interviewer as ingroup or outgroup might also influence their suggestibility to misleading information.…”