The Effects of the Courtroom Context on Children's Memory and Anxiety

Nathanson, Rebecca; Saywitz, Karen J.

doi:10.1177/009318530303100105

Cited by 55 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Nathanson and Saywitz 67 found, for example, that children provide more complete and accurate reports when questioned in a small private room than in a courtroom setting. Moreover, children had significantly more erratic heart rate patterns, indicative of a stress response, when interviewed in the courtroom.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attorneys' Perceptions of Child Witnesses with Mental Retardation

Nathanson¹,

Platt²

2005

The Journal of Psychiatry & Law

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Children with mental retardation are more likely to be abused than the general population, yet are often denied access to the justice system. Research on children without mental retardation has revealed skepticism as to their reliability as witnesses in the court of law. Even more so, children with mental retardation face the issue of credibility because of their age and disability. This study assesses attorneys' perceptions of child witnesses with mental retardation. Thirty-nine criminal attorneys completed a 33-item questionnaire designed to assess their opinions of the abilities of adults and of children with and without mental retardation to recall and communicate information in the forensic context. Results revealed that attorneys perceived child witnesses as less credible and more suggestible than adult witnesses. Moreover, analyses indicated that child witnesses with mental retardation were also perceived as less credible and more suggestible than child witnesses without mental retardation.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attorneys' Perceptions of Child Witnesses with Mental Retardation

Nathanson¹,

Platt²

2005

The Journal of Psychiatry & Law

Self Cite

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“…Quas, Wallin, Horwitz, Davis, and Lyon (2009) examined legal knowledge of 94 children aged 4-15 years and found that children who were more knowledgeable about the legal system were less distressed about attending their dependency court hearings. Nathanson and Saywitz (2003) examined the mock testimony of 81 8-to 10-year-olds in a courtroom at a university law school. They found that greater legal knowledge was linked to more detailed and accurate responses to questions about past events on the stand.…”

Section: Prepare Children With Age-appropriate Explanations Of the Pumentioning

confidence: 99%

Interviewing children in custody cases: Implications of research and policy for practice

Saywitz

Camparo

Romanoff³

2010

Behavioral Sci & The Law

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Research on child interviewing has burgeoned over the past 25 years as expectations about children's agency, competence, and participation in society have changed. This article identifies recent trends in research, policy, and theory with implications for the practice of interviewing children in cases of contested divorce and for the weight to be given the information children provide. A number of fields of relevant research are identified, including studies of families who have participated in the family law system, studies of child witnesses in the field, experimental studies of the effects of interview techniques on children's memory and suggestibility, and ethnographic methods that elicit children's views of their own experiences. Finally, a set of 10 principles for practice are delineated based on the best available science.

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“…while testifying in mock or actual trials), including when measured via physiological indices, is negatively related to children's ability to communicate and positively related to children's memory errors (e.g. Goodman, Taub, Jones, & England, 1992;Nathanson & Saywitz, 2003;Saywitz & Nathanson, 1993). Accordingly, it is important to distinguish the effects of arousal at encoding from arousal at retrieval when evaluating children's memory for emotional events.…”

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confidence: 99%

Arousal at encoding, arousal at retrieval, interviewer support, and children's memory for a mild stressor

Quas

Lench

2006

Applied Cognitive Psychology

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The relations among children's physiological arousal at encoding and retrieval, interviewer-provided social support and children's memory for a mild stressor were examined in 109 five-and six-yearolds. The children came to a research laboratory and watched a fear eliciting video clip. A week later, their memory for the video clip was tested by either a supportive or nonsupportive interviewer. While watching the video and completing the memory interview, children's heart rate was monitored. Increased heart rate at encoding was associated with fewer incorrect responses. In contrast, increased heart rate at retrieval was associated with poorer memory, but only when the interviewer was nonsupportive. Heart rate was unrelated to memory when the interviewer was supportive. Results suggest that arousal at encoding and retrieval have different implications for children's memory for a mild stressor, particularly in nonsupportive interview contexts.For some time, there has been considerable interest in understanding how emotions, particularly negative emotions, affect mnemonic processes in children. This interest stems from theoretical questions concerning the effects of emotions on cognitive processes and applied questions concerning coping with stress, the development of trauma disorders, and the accuracy of children's eyewitness testimony. Although numerous researchers have examined the relations between negative emotions and memory in children, researchers have not concurrently taken into account children's arousal at both encoding and retrieval as separate predictors of memory. Nor have researchers considered how interviewer demeanour, specifically interviewer supportiveness, affects children's memory for stressful events, directly and also in conjunction with children's arousal. In the present study, we examined the relations between children's physiological arousal, both at encoding and retrieval, and their memory for fearful information. Of importance, we manipulated the interviewer's demeanour to investigate the extent to which variations in social support, in conjunction with children's arousal at retrieval, affect their memory.Prior studies of emotion and memory in children have typically focused on how differences in children's 'arousal' or 'distress' relate to their memory. Results have revealed somewhat inconsistent findings. Although many researchers have reported APPLIED COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

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The Effects of the Courtroom Context on Children's Memory and Anxiety

Cited by 55 publications

References 16 publications

Attorneys' Perceptions of Child Witnesses with Mental Retardation

Attorneys' Perceptions of Child Witnesses with Mental Retardation

Interviewing children in custody cases: Implications of research and policy for practice

Arousal at encoding, arousal at retrieval, interviewer support, and children's memory for a mild stressor

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