Long-term stability of young children's eyewitness accuracy, suggestibility, and resistance to misinformation

The Gestural Misinformation Effect in Child Interviews in Switzerland

Gestures embody concepts in the form of universal representations. Researchers have highlighted that social communication often embodies nonverbal behavior. A forensic interviewer’s nonverbal behavior, such as gesturing during an interview, could communicate misleading information and may cause inaccuracies in the interviewees’ testimonies. The current study was conducted in Switzerland and included 108 child participants, in three age groups (a younger sample aged 6–9 years, n = 32) (a middle sample aged 10–11 years, n = 40) and an older sample aged 12–13 years, n = 36). Participants viewed a video and completed an interview about the video, individually, immediately after. During the questioning, the interviewer deliberately misled the interviewees with nonverbal gestures. The results showed that 95 children were misled by at least one gesture and that gestures led to a significant decrease in accuracy. Children also incorporated misleading gestures and reported false information; adding to existing evidence that misinformation can also be communicated through nonverbal gestures. Our findings demonstrate the negative influence of misleading gestures in child eyewitness interviews and provide more evidence for the robustness of the gestural misinformation effect, reported in previous research.

Developmental Differences across Middle Childhood in Memory and Suggestibility for Negative and Positive Events

In the present study, we investigated age differences in children's eyewitness memory and suggestibility for negative and positive events that children often experience during middle childhood. We first examined 216 ratings by children aged 8-12 years of the frequency and intensity of personal negative and positive experiences (Study 1). Based on those ratings, videotapes depicting the most frequent and intense negative (an accident) and positive (a family excursion) events were developed. A new sample of 227 children aged 8-12 years was tested for recognition memory of the videotapes using the three-stage post-event misinformation procedure (Study 2). Compared with 8- to 9-year-olds, 10- to 12-year-olds exhibited less memory malleability and less compliance with false information. Age improvements in recognition accuracy were also evident for children who watched the negative event, but not for those who watched the positive event. Compliance predicted misinformation effects, particularly in regard to peripheral details. Thus, using ecologically representative emotional events, age differences in suggestibility and memory accuracy emerged, especially for negative events.Theoretical and forensic implications concerning children's eyewitness memory and suggestibility are discussed. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.