MLA SAMPLE Adults Discernment Of Childrens True And False Memory Reports

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Adults’ Discernment of Children’s True and False Memory Reports

Introduction

Block et al. is a study that involves the adult's take on children's reports on whether legal

proceedings that involve children can lead to justice. Studies carried out on children’s false

memories on full events draw considerable attention in the current legal system. What is more,

serious criminal offenses that involve children pose a challenge to the current justice system

since they are hinged mainly on children’s reports. Sometimes, they may be complete and true,

but the possibility of children reporting false reports or incorrect denials raises serious concerns.

The study involved a sample of 92 undergraduate students and 35 laypersons. The participants

viewed some videotapes of interviews that involved minors aged between three and five years

old evaluating the true or false memory reports. The reports were categorized based on a two by

two factorial design of (event type: true vs. false) by (child report: assent vs. denial). This gave

outcomes of accurate and false denials as well as accurate and false reports. The study highlights

the major difficulties that adults experience during the evaluation of young children’s false

denials as opposed to other types of reports. The study also discusses the implications of law-

related circumstances in which adults may be called upon to evaluate children.

METHOD

A total of 92 undergraduate students and 35 laypersons aged between 18 and 79 years

participated in evaluating the videotaped interviews. The participants were ethnically-diverse and

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involved samples from all races. The inclusion of the adult community was significant in

capturing the experience with children. Variation in age and attitudes towards children could also

influence the judgements of the recorded videos.

Video clips of interviews captured from a study that targeted the children’s memory for

true and false events provided the source of data. The parental reports extracted from the videos

were gathered on three different phases to determine the accuracy of the true and false events.

The first report came from the parents’ interviews before their video laboratory visit, where they

participated in phone interviews concerning the experiences that their child might have had. This

included any favorable or unpleasant experience before the video. The narration of the child’s

experience provided the basis from which the interview questions were created and tailored

towards the particular experiences. The second phase involved the careful review of the

interviews for the accuracy of the events categorized as true, and that false events did not occur.

The third phase involved the parents watching the children interviewed via CCTV cameras. They

provided additional information about the children's accuracy during the interview; this is a

precedent for the reliability of the parents’ reports to determine the overall accuracy of the

children’s statements for the true and false events.

A total of 24 video clips were divided across the 2(child report) X 2(event type) factorial

and an additional practice clip in which a child provided accurate statements was the source of

data. Therefore, all participants analysed reports of 25 different children. The interviews

included a series of straightforward questions about particular events and all questions in the

series asked whether the child admitted or denied the occurrence of the event. For a true event,

the child either concurred (accurate report) or denied the occurrence of the event incorrectly

(false denial). For the false events, the child either denied correctly (accurate denial) or assented

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incorrectly (false report). The children were chosen in equal numbers of ages 3 and 5years as

well as different ethnicities and gender. The video observers then filled the children statement

evaluation questionnaires that would later guide in the analysis.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS

The study hypothesized that adults are in a better position to detect the true accounts due to the

truth bias as found in the previous studies. On average, the adults were reluctant to express to

express confidence in the truth of event occurrence. However, the hypothesis was proved true as

adults were more confident about the event occurrence when the children gave accurate

reports.The findings imply that it would be unlikely for adults to believe that an event such as

domestic abuse had occurred if a child denied it falsely. Nonetheless, findings also support the

fact that false reports may sometimes lead adults astray.

There was a tendency for the evaluator to rate the children positively if they denied all the

events. This means the denial bias got skewed away from the truth. Event plausibility is also of

significance due to its potential in decision making about false memory. In the study, observers

who considered an event as more plausible were more likely to view the child as believable and

accurate. Hence, when a child claimed that an event such as throwing a stone through the

window occurred, the observer relied on the plausibility of the event to decide whether to believe

the child or not.

Although male observers are considered to be of higher confidence compared to women,

there were no significant differences in sensitivity and gender bias. However, the accuracy of

observation increased with age; a factor that could be related to experience with children, attitude

towards children, or observer type (student vs. Layman). The findings suggest that adults have

some difficulty to identify false denials when evaluating leading interviews with young children.

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This is a problem that has received relatively minimal research attention compared to false

reports.

REACTIONS

The issue of false denials is still the bone of contention in this study considering the fact that

events such as embarrassments or punishments are negative events. However, if the study is

anything to go by, there would be the prosecution of few cases. Children’s fear for repercussions

and reporting styles may differ based on certain prosecutable events. If a child believes that the

offender may face serious negative consequences as a result of their reports, they are likely to

deny that the event occurred. The nature of interviews with children is mostly leading and

repetitive; the fact that a child begins the answers with a denial may lead the observer to believe

that they have denied the event occurrence accurately.

The reliance on the parental report for confirmation may also mislead the findings since

some parents may be biased especially during negative events while some may have false

memories. The observers are also aware that children have been encouraged to tell the truth; this

bolsters their confidence to believe in whatever the children say regardless of whether it is true or

false. A courtroom or forensic interview situation would be the same, but the observer would be

keen to separate the truth from denial.

Although the study used several random stimuli, fatigue could influence the results

considering the number of interviews that every participant observed. However, fatigue effects

may not influence legal contexts such as trial. The number of children used in the study was also

not sufficient to evaluate child factors like age, gender, or race. The participant questionnaire that

was presented after the video interviews might have affected the responses. In a legal context,

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the interviews are mostly done after investigations and fact finders may at times be aware of the

reasons for false denials.

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MLA SAMPLE Adults Discernment of Childrens True and False Memory Reports

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