Age of witness: Factors affecting the accuracy of children's EWT

Age of witness: Factors affecting the accuracy of children's EWT

1. ENCODING

   • CECI and BRUCK (1993)
   • Children lack appropriate schemas
     • Results in inaccurate recall of events
     • Difficult to encode event accurately
     • Adults' prior knowledge/expectations due to schemas may sometimes cause them to imagine things that were actually not present

2. STORAGE

   • As time between encoding and retrieval increases, recall and recognition declines in both adults and children.
   • THOMSON (1988)
   • The longer the interval between encoding and retrieval, the higher are the chances of inaccurate details provided by children compared to adults
   • Type of information
     • Descriptions of people seem to be less accurately reported than details of actions

3. RETRIEVAL

   • Children omit more information than adults
   • Non-suggestive cues can help elicit accurateinformation
     • SAYWITZ (1987)
   • When asked leading questions, they are more likely than adults to give the answer implied by the question
     • GOODMAN and REED (1986)
   • Misleading questions: Questions that wrongly imply that something has happened
     • Children will eventually incorporate misleading information if given repeatedly
       • LEICHTMAN and CECI (1995)

4. CECI and BRUCK (1993): Factors that can affect children's EWT

   • Interviewer bias
     • - interviewer has fixed about about what really happened - use leading questions to try to get the child to confirm their bias
   • Repeated questions
     • - more likely to change answers if same question is repeated
   • Stereotype induction
     • - person has previously been described as bad - children may assume and report negative things about the person
   • Encouragement to imagine and visualize
     • - children may 'remember' events that never actually happened if they are encouraged too much to think about the event - pressure to give an answer?
   • Peer pressure
     • - children may incorporate events into their own memories that others have told them about
   • Authority figures
     • - desire to please authority figure - more susceptible to misleading information