Repeated Questioning Study
The
Effects of Repeated Questioning on Young Children’s Eyewitness Testimony
(British
Journal of Psychology; Aug. 96, Vol. 87 Issue 3)
This study attempts to link repeated questioning by interviewers with false memories in children. While many believe that anytime a child is placed on trial he or she will testify as accurate as an adult, many studies such as this one seem to prove the opposite. Children seem to be vulnerable to repeated questioning by interviewers and eventually they will change their testimony in an attempt to answer the questions in the way they feel the interviewer wishes them to. In this study researchers tested children of different ages with different questions to see which questioning method elicited the highest amount of false recalls.
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Children of five and seven years of age witnessed a staged event and then were individually interviewed with a free-recall test and then closed and open form questions, some of which were repeated by the interviewer. The main finding that was derived upon through this study found that the age of the child greatly affected recall in all questioning methods. Older children were more accurate in their recall than younger children in all categories, therefore proving that age is directly linked with the rate of false testimonies. The second finding of importance uncovered the link between false testimonies and open and closed questioning. There is a higher correlation of false testimonies due to repeated questioning with closed questioning. Open questions were actually more accurate with repeated questioning.
The main finding of this study seems to focus on the link between repeated questioning of closed questions and false testimonies. Children in these situations feel that the first answer they gave must have been incorrect and therefore change their answer in an attempt to give the “right” answer. These false testimonies can be minimized with closed questioning if children are informed before the questioning that they don’t have to change their answers and that it is alright to say “I don’t know.” While these may seem to be small findings, they are actually greatly important. There will always be cases where children must testify as eyewitnesses and in these situations the greatest care must be taken to ensure that the testimony is as accurate as possible.
Recalling Childhood Memories
Memory is a continual process; therefore, memories often disrupt each other through interference. Studies have shown that our memories are disrupted through two main types of interference. Proactive interference occurs when things that we experienced earlier disrupt memories and retroactive interference occurs when things that we experienced later disrupt memories. Retroactive interference tests show that after receiving new misleading information people will falsely report what they saw. The misleading information often becomes incorporated into their recollection of the events, sometimes changing them in significant ways. This is often the case when children falsely recall memories of childhood abuse. They can be mislead, even in the littlest ways and use these misrepresented ideas to create new false memories of what actually happened.
Psychologists have performed experiments that have supported the idea that people can actually create false memories if they are given false post-event information. In one experiment, the participants were mailed a packet that included stories of the participant’s childhood written by a member of their family. Three of the stories actually happened and one, the third one, was made up. The participants were asked to write what they remembered about each of the events. They were told that if they had no recollection of the event then they were to write, “I do not remember this.” Then, they were to mail the packet back and attend two interviews with the experimenter. In the first interview the subjects were reminded of the four events and asked to recall as much as they could whether they had already written it down or not. They were then asked to rate the clarity of their memory from 1 to 10 (with one being the least clear). They were also asked to rate their confidence that they would be able to remember more details if they were given more time to think about it. A couple weeks later they attended a second interview, which was conducted very similarly to the first.
The results of this experiment showed that the subjects were able to recall 68% of the true memories and 25% of the participants recalled the false memory either completely or partially. In general the clarity rating was lower for the false memory than for the real memories, however, their rating was higher during the second interview then during the first. The confidence ratings were also lower for the false memory then for the real memories. At the end, when the subjects were asked which memory is the false memory of the four, approximately 20% chose one of the real memories as being the false memory (Loftus, 1995). Therefore believing that the false memory actually occurred.
It is obvious from this experiment and others like it that the phenomenon of false memory formation is a reality. False memories can be developed by a suggestion that leaves a memory trace in the brain even if it is tagged as a suggestion and not a fact. With time, this suggestion combines with existing knowledge to create false memories.
(Loftus, E.F. & Pickrell, J.E. (1995) The formation of false memories. Psychiatric Annals, 25, 720-725)
-Presentation
of Anti-False Memory /
Pro-False Memory /
Our Argument / Memory Therapy
-Imagination / Case Studies
/ Repeated Questioning Case /
-Conclusion