Project
Investigator:
Karen
L. Thierry
This
study is funded by The Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback
Foundation - Minority Junior Faculty Award
The
Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation has presented
its Minority Junior Faculty Award to Dr. Karen Thierry
(assistant professor, CCAS-psychology), who will use the
one-year, $15,000 grant to further her research into the
development of young children's awareness of how they
learn information.
Abstract
Young child witnesses (3- to 6-year-olds) are more likely
than older children and adults to confuse events that
were merely suggested or seen on television as having
really happened. These source confusions may lead children
to falsely accuse persons of criminal activities, as
in cases of alleged sexual abuse. The proposed study
will examine whether one type of source (e.g., heard)
is more likely to be confused with reality than another
source (e.g., television). Three- to 4- and 5- to 6-year-old
children (N = 100) will witness a staged event in real
life and will either hear about another similar event
from a story or see another event on a video. Afterward,
the children will be asked to indicate the source (real
life, story, video) of remembered event actions. Children
should be more likely to confuse events heard from a
story as occurring in real life than they are to confuse
events seen on video as occurring in real life.
Child
Witnesses’ Source Confusions: Discriminating Real-life
Events
From Events Heard or Seen on Television
Within the past 25 years, children have been increasingly
called upon to testify as witnesses, particularly in cases
of alleged sexual abuse (Ceci & Bruck, 1995). Researchers
have raised concern about suggestive interviewing techniques
sometimes used with young child witnesses. For example,
asking children to “imagine” that something
happened could induce children to make false reports of
abuse (Garven, Wood, Malpass, & Shaw, 1998). Laboratory
studies have shown that such suggestive questioning is
problematic because young children are more likely than
older children and adults to confuse imagined or heard
sources of information as memories of events that really
happened (Ackil & Zaragoza, 1995; Ceci, Loftus, Leichtman,
& Bruck, 1994). Child witnesses’ reports of
alleged abuse could also be contaminated by information
suggested to them by their parents or other family members,
or even by events seen on television (Poole & Lindsay,
1995; Roberts & Blades, 1998). The aim of the proposed
study is to examine whether young children are more likely
to be mislead by, for example, heard (suggested) events
than by events seen on television.
For
more information about this study, please read Cathy Karmilowicz's
article "Rutgers-Camden
Psychologist Studies Children's Concepts of Reality"
or contact Dr.
Karen Thierry
