Research concerning children's eyewitness abilities has repeatedly demonstrated harmful effects of suggestive questioning and superior accuracy of free-recall reports. However, children's free recall is often incomplete, and new interview methods are needed that enhance children's productivity without increasing contamination. In the current research, we are examining whether several very simple and easily implemented interviewer behaviors can do just this. Such behaviors include vocatives (e.g., stating the child's name), which focus the child's attention; and back-channel utterances (e.g., following responses with "uh huh"), which convey interviewer attentiveness. These behaviors have been observed in field research of forensic interviews. However, because ground truth is not known and there is no control over the use of the behaviors in naturalistic settings, the actual effects of these behaviors on productivity and accuracy are unknown. We are experimentally testing the effects of these interviewer behaviors, collectively referred to as facilitative utterances, on 4- to 9-year olds' descriptions of a salient event, namely a laboratory activity involving a minor transgression (toy breakage). Our procedures will allow us to determine whether facilitative utterances increase how much children report about prior experiences, particularly those that include some negative components, and whether the benefits of facilitative utterances vary with age, for example, as children become more competent recounting past events without assistance from others.
Overall, our project will advance science and policy at the interface of developmental psychology and the law. Considerable uncertainty remains about how best to elicit detailed narrative reports from suspected child victims. Much of this uncertainty is attributable to a lack of experimental investigation of interviewer behaviors commonly observed in field practices. By conducting a systematic assessment of potentially critical interviewer behaviors, we will be able to decrease some of this uncertainty, thereby improving the identification of truly abused children and the legal system's ability to pursue justice in cases involving alleged abuse.
