Emotions, Crime Seriousness, and Alibi Believability.

In the current study the impact of victim age, crime seriousness, and social influence on perceptions of alibi believability, victim responsibility, confidence, and emotions was examined. Participants (N = 141) read a brief crime-scenario vignette and a summary of the suspect's alibi, followed by a series of closed-ended questions. The alibi was held constant across all conditions. Eighty percent of participants rated the suspect's alibi as moderately believable or less than moderately believable. A significant interaction of Victim Age × Crime Seriousness on perceptions of alibi believability was found. Additionally, those individuals who reported greater feelings of certain negative emotions tended to rate the crime as being more serious and the suspect's alibi as less believable. Furthermore, participants' self-reported feelings of sadness, pleasure, and fear could significantly predict participants' alibi believability ratings. These results offer additional support for the legal relevance of emotions, particularly with respect to alibi assessment.

Children who are coached to lie: does linguistic analysis help in understanding why these children are so believable?

In this study, the usefulness of linguistic analysis in determining the veracity of children's accounts is examined. The Linguistic Inquiry Word Count 2007 program was used to analyze 95 stories told by 5- to 14-year-olds who were telling the truth or a lie about the stressful experience of breaking a bone or requiring sutures for serious lacerations. Half of the children were coached by parents in preparing their story over the four days prior to giving their account. Differences emerged in the linguistic style used as a function of age, presence of coaching and event veracity. Very few linguistic categories emerged as significant predictors of event veracity, and the variables that did emerge were different depending upon the presence of coaching. Since in real-life situations one seldom knows a child's coaching history, these findings suggest that it is inappropriate to use linguistic analysis to assess the veracity of children's accounts.

Adults' Detection of Deception in Children: Effect of Coaching and Age for Children's True and Fabricated Reports of Injuries.

A total of 1,074 undergraduates judged the truthfulness of children's interviews (from verbatim transcripts) about experiencing injuries serious enough to require hospital emergency room treatment. Ninety-six children (three age groups: 5-7, 8-10, and 11-14 years, 50% girls) were interviewed. At each age, 16 children told truthful accounts of actual injury experiences and 16 fabricated their reports, with half of each group coached by parents for the previous 4 days. Lies by 5- to 7-year-olds, whether coached or not, were detected at above-chance levels. In contrast, 8- to 10-year-olds' accounts that were coached, whether true or not, were more likely to be believed. For 11- to 14-year-olds, adults were less likely to accurately judge lies if they were coached. The believability of children aged 8 or above who were coached to lie is particularly disturbing in light of the finding that participants were more confident in the accuracy of their veracity decisions when judging coached reports.

Exploring parent-child discussions of crime and their influence on children's memory.

When children witness or experience criminal events, the first people they go to are generally parents. Typically, no one else is privy to these conversations, and consequently little is known about their specific content. Research has shown that children can be quite accurate witnesses at times. However, they can also incorporate information from misleading and suggestive questions into their recall, and once their event memory has been changed, children may be unable to provide accurate reports. It is important then to assess parent-child discussions about crime. In the present study, 7- to 10-year-old children watched a video of a theft and talked about it with a parent immediately afterwards, and half had a second immediate interview with a researcher. All were interviewed by a different interviewer 1 week later. Results showed that: parents relied on direct and yes/no questions; children made errors of commission in response to questions; some parents asked leading or misleading questions; children incorporated all correct information from leading questions and nearly 40% of incorrect information from misleading questions; children provided additional information when interviewed by an interviewer 1 week later; and children remained relatively accurate in their descriptions but some were more accurate with parents than with an interviewer 1 week later.

Detecting children's lies: comparing true accounts about highly stressful injuries with unprepared, prepared, and coached lies.

In this investigation, 514 university students judged whether children were telling the truth about highly emotional events. Eight children (half female, half 8-9 and the remainder 12-14 years old) had been injured seriously enough to require emergency room treatment and were interviewed a few days later. Each was yoked to three other children matched in age and gender who fabricated accounts under one of three conditions: lies that were unprepared, prepared (24 hours to prepare), and coached by parents. Participants were at chance when judging true accounts as well as unprepared and prepared lies. However, 74% of the coached lies were judged as true. Participants' confidence in their judgments, age, experience with children, and relevant coursework/training did not improve judgments.

Infantile amnesia across the years: a 2-year follow-up of children's earliest memories.

Although infantile amnesia has been investigated for many years in adults, only recently has it been investigated in children. This study was a 2-year follow-up and extension of an earlier study. Children (4-13 years old) were asked initially and 2 years later for their earliest 3 memories. At follow-up, their age at the time of these memories shifted to several months later, with younger children unlikely to provide the same memories. Moreover, when given cues about memories recalled 2 years previously, many were still not recalled. In contrast, older children were more likely to recall the same memories, and cues to former memories were successful. Thus, older children were becoming consistent in terms of recalling very early memories.

Descriptions and identifications of strangers by youth and adult eyewitnesses.

Two studies varying target gender and mode of target exposure were conducted to compare the quantity, nature, and accuracy of free recall person descriptions provided by youths and adults. In addition, the relation among age, identification accuracy, and number of descriptors reported was considered. Youths (10-14 years) reported fewer descriptors than adults. Exterior facial descriptors (e.g., hair items) were predominant and accurately reported by youths and adults. Accuracy was consistently problematic for youths when reporting body descriptors (e.g., height, weight) and interior facial features. Youths reported a similar number of descriptors when making accurate versus inaccurate identification decisions. This pattern also was consistent for adults. With target-absent lineups, the difference in the number of descriptors reported between adults and youths was greater when making a false positive versus correct rejection.

When initial interviews are delayed a year: effect on children's 2-year recall.

Three- to nine-year-old children were interviewed about a medical emergency (injury requiring hospital ER treatment) two years after it occurred. Half of the number of children had been interviewed shortly after injury as well as 6 and 12 months later, while the remaining children had had only one prior interview a year after injury. There was remarkably little long-term deterioration in memory by both groups. Having a delayed initial interview had two effects, and both were relevant only to the harder-to-remember hospital treatment event: (a) The late-interview group was less accurate, and (b) early-interview children had more extensive free recall, suggesting that multiple prior interviews teach children the "rules of the memory game'' when they are asked open-ended questions. Forensic implications are discussed.