Psych 388A Notes (1) PDF

Unit 1 : Introduction to children and the law What is Children and the Law? - Children: A young human below the age of Puberty or below the age of the majority. ( depends on the context and depends on the lens you are looking) the justice system recognizes is anyone under the a...

Unit 1 : Introduction to children and the law What is Children and the Law? - Children: A young human below the age of Puberty or below the age of the majority. ( depends on the context and depends on the lens you are looking) the justice system recognizes is anyone under the age of majority - Law: Its the criminal justice system and what is legal and illegal, what is written in the criminal code, - Psychology study of the brain mind and behavior and this course will look at the scientific reasoning of children and the law. - Offender: Being invaded in the CJS as someone committing a crime, this is on route to being involved in the CJS - Victim: another route to the CJS who has crime committed against them, a victim can also be victim if they are alive, because they have info about the crime - Witness: A person who sees a crime and informs the authorities of the crime. Ex; a person can call another person and tell them about a crime happening, the person who was called can also be a witness, A witness can also be a victim if they intervened in the crime Brief History How children were viewed - Middle ages ( 1500) : viewed as little adults and expected to work and marry from a very young age - Enlightenment Period ( 1685-1815): Viewed as innocent beings and not as little adults, needed to be protected - Victorian era ( 1837-1901): Children needed to be segregated not for being children but to be put in their place( adults know more) - 20th century ( 1901-2000): Children needed to be protected and have putty on them, learned that development is different for a child, the legislation and the CJS came into play and started to change - 21st century (2000-present): We are extra careful and extra pitiful towards children we are begging to learn more about their development abd behaviors, especially in the CJS  - Before 1900s: not involved in the CJS if convicted of a crime you would go to the same prison as adults - During 1900s: the CJS implemented a Juvenile JS and attitude of children were changing - 21st century: Actively inviled in the CJS Children as victims and witnesses Children maltreatment: Any type of abuse, neglect =, negligence or exploitation of a child under the age of majority, causing injury or emotional damage. - Abuse: treating the child with violence, Sexual, physical - Neglect: depriving the child of their basic needs not providing a child the care they need. How common is child maltreatment? - Some claim maltreatment rate are decreasing, but they are actually increasing by a lot - In Canada there is a 190% increase of children experienced sexual abuse from 2011 to 2021 - 8% of Canadians experience sexual abuse before the age of 15 - Older adolescents ( 15-18) are 15x more likely to be a victim of a crime compared to adults How is this maltreatment influence a child during their life? Why are rates increasing? - Covid-19: During lockdown higher rates of child maltreatment 11% in physical abuse, 55% of emotional abuse. Why? Vulnerable children are closer to their abuser. Risk factor such as unemployment, perpetuate adult abuse - Economic hardships: ⅓ of Canaduans are experiencing financial hardships because of covid 19 and cost of living, Causes parents and households to be frustrated with the way of life causing them to be more aggravated and aggressive - Family Dynamics: In 2016 ⅕ children were living in a single parent family. 1.84 million single parent families (2022) vs 1.37 m (2006). It is easier to abuse a child when you are alone. And neglecting the child is easier Why should we care? - Child maltreatment effects their psychology and psychiatry and - criminological behavior, maltreatment of children are more likely to have criminal tendencies. - Cycle of violence; Victims becomes Victimizer - Emotional distress: Experience distress because the offender is usually close to the victim, they are afraid of the consequence of reporting a crime. - Rapport Building: Techniques used by interview to support the disclosure of the crime. What the reporte use to make the victim feel comfortable - Creating a interpersonal connection and makes the child a comfortable - Encourages child to talk - Narrative practice helps the interviewer understand how a child talks and answer a question. By asking questions and engaging in regular conversation the interviewer can identify how a child will respond to a question. This helps the child to feel more comfortable and open to talk about the case. If the interviewer feels that the child is being shy or they are regressing. Then they will go back to having normal conversation such as the child's favorite superhero. Children as offender Adolescent offenders unique development - Adult: presumed to be fully competent and responsible - Children: presumes to be vulnerable dependent and incapable of informed and mature decision. - Adolescence are in the middle. They understand what tey are doing but also not fully competent nor fully developed - Adolescents: Are the in-betweens and leave ambiguity and uncertainty in the JS, seen as either child or adult Adolescents Competent and Culpability - Competence: The ability to make informed decisions Are adolescents less competent then adults? Why Might they have less? - They have less life experience - less cognitive abilities - less psychosocial abilities Culpability: The extent to which you are responsible for your behavior/crime - If you are less competent then you are less culpable Should they be held responsible? You have to look at the case - Repeat offenders - Motive Youth Criminal Justice Act (2003) revised in 2012 - Anyone under the age of 12 is not competent enough fro their crime therefore not charged with a crime - Anyone under 18, is senstec to youth court and serves their sentence in youth correction - Youth senetsc will always be less extreme - Adult sentence given to a youth: Same sentence as adult , and eligibility for parole earlier Rates of Youth incarceration - In 2019 average 700 youth in custody per day - Rates are the highest in Sask, Manitoba, Nunavut and, NWT - Rates increase are increasing in 2010 juvenile offender represented about 6% of canadian youth population - Evidence Shown that these crimes are become violent Why are they commenting more crimes? - Covid 19: During the pandemic they were bored were home with their parents, may have escaped by going outside, increasing risk in criminal behavior - Economics hardships: ⅓ Canadian say that they are experience hardships, they engage in petty crimes like theft to help their family out or joking a gang - Family Dynamics: They try to provide for their family with criminal acts or engaging risky behavior since parents are not home And fourth reason why rates are increasing - Adult dating violence: And adverse childhood experience of abuse in a dating relationships, Physical, sexual, Psychological aggression or stalking - ADV: in 2019 1/12 highschool student stated that they experience some sort of physical violence, 1/12 experience some sort of sexual violence What are the consequence? - Mental Health: Experience more depression and anxiety, also think about suicide - Behaviors Unhealthy behaviors ( drinking drugs, tobacco) Show antisocial behaviors - Future relationships: sets the stage for their future relationships, They can become the victim and again or becoming the victimizer For the 2SLGBTQ+ youth are more likely to experience dating violence - 35% youths are physically abused vs 10% males and 14% females Canada vs Everywhere else Canada: Age of persecution 12, Adult 18 US: age of prosecuting sates dependent for youth and adult Australia: Age of prosecution: 14. Adult 18 Unit 2: Child Maltreatment What is child maltreatment: Any type of abuse or neglect negligence under the age of 18 Canada defines child maltreatment in four ways - Physical abuse - Sexual abuse - Neglect - Emotional abuse When facing maltreant it co-occurs with another abuse Emotional abuse is most likely to occur with physical and or sexual Neglect is usual the only form of maltreatment and typically does not occur with a form of abuse Frequency of child maltreatment - 34% neglect - Exposure domestic violence 34% - Physical abuse 28% - Emotional maltreatment 9% - Sexual abuse 3% - Physical and sexual are most unfounded Corporal punishment can be physical abuse - Supreme court of Canada ruled in (2004) - Corporal punishment is prohibited in schools - BUT can still use physical force to remove a students to prevent immediate threat - Parents cannot spank, slap, or other corporal punishment on children 2 years and under or 12+ - For children 3-12 parents cant use an object - Cant strike on the head or face Child Maltreatment in Canada - In canada children in need of protection must be reported - In need of protection? Is when a child is need of protection from abuse - Expect in Yukon Do people actually report? - Beck and Ogloff 1995 survey in canada psychologist - 98% of them were aware that this was mandatory to report but many do not because not enough evidence Canada - National level of child maltreat ment in Canada data for the general population does not exist - Not enough study - In Sask and manitoba 7.4% over the age of 12 were physically abused  - 2% of males and 8% of females who were victims of IPV reported being sexually abused as a child Risk Factors for Physical abuse: Child Factors - Male - Pre mature - Pregnancy or birth complications - Child stability - Unplanned pregnancy or negative emotions to the pregnancy Family Factors: - Single parent - History of childhood abuse - Spousal assault - History of substance abuse - Social isolation - Low SES - Large family size Consequences Short term - Aggression - Mental health - Lower intellectual functioning - Lower academic achievement - Perceptual-motor deficits Long terms: - Perpetrate dating & family violence - Receive dating & family violence Risk Factor in sexual abuse - Living without a biological parents - Poor relationship between parents - Presence of a step-father - Poor child-parent relationships  - Female What are the consequences? Short Term: - Sleep disturbances - Eating disorders Lower self-esteem - Stomach problems - Headaches - Inappropriate sexuality Long term: - Psychiatric disorders - Dysfunctional behaviors - Neurobiological dysregulation - Sexual abuse as an adult - Substance abuse problems - Family problems Child maltreatment in court - Conally and read in 2006 analyzed 2064 for sexual abuse - Female 76% - Between 5- and 13-years-old when abuse began Between 9- and 16-years-old when abuse ended Accused of the crimes: - Male (99%) - 33-years-old when abuse began - 36-years-old when abuse ended - 51-years-old at trial - Related to the victim (32%; 25% relative) - Accused on multiple offenses (M = 1.87, range = 1 - 22) Typical offense - Repeated abuse - Sustained, on average, for 4 years - Did NOT involve a threat  - If one was reported, it was likely against the victim or their family's physical safety Grooming: When offenders lure children without being detected How do they get accesses to children? - They are teachers, parents family members etc, they find moments and use techniques that they get close to them. Giving them gifts, isolating them, making them feel special and targeting a child with needs - Issues?: children are poor at detecting grooming and estimating likelihood of sexual abuse Grooming Goals - Giving them gifts without telling anyone, they can see if they can keep a secret - Decrease discovery, and see if they can corporate - Increase future sexual contact Types of grooming - Grooming: Offenders lures child - Personal grooming: where the offender grooms their own mind to think that the child wants this to happen - Familial grooming: offender grooms the family, by getting close to the family for ulterior motives, gain the trust of the family - Community grooming: offenders grooms the community, gain the trust of the community, by being a respected member of society - Between 1997-2017 there were 750 cases of child sexual abuse by 714 employess from K-12 in Canadian schools - Over 70% of them used grooming as the main form to target their victims - Most CSA survivors trauma is not just by the abuse but by the whole grooming process Grooming stages 5 stages sexual grooming model - Stage one: Victims selection - Stage two: Gain access to the victims environment and begin personal grooming  - Stage three: build trust - Stage four: normalize sexual and physical contact - Stage five: maintenance after the abuse Stage one: Victim selection - Looking for a trusting and compliant victim - Lack confidence and self esteem - Lonely and not popular - Troubled - Needy and unwanted - Not close to parents - Single mother - Lack of supervision Stage two: Gaining access to environment - Involved in youth organization - Manipulating families to gain trust - Engage in activities alone with children - Overnight stays Stage three: Building trust - They are charming nice or likable - Act like a central figure to community - Giving child attention - Say that the child is their favorite - Give them compliments - Giving them rewards or privileges Stage four: Engage in sexual and physical contact - Ask question about the child sexual experience - Talk to them about their own sexual experience - Use inappropriate sexual language - Tell dirty jokes - Expose their naked body - Show the child porn Stage five: Maintaining abuse - Tell no one - Encourages secrets - You are so special  - Give rewards or bribes - Persuade the child it was normal behavior - Threats of abandonment - Make them feel as they are responsible All five stages are essential to the grooming process - Benefit: intuitive and easy to understand - Still not as easy 42 tactics that belong to these stages Unknowns: do all the groomers progress through the stages? Do they jump back and forth? Adult detecting grooming - Trained adults to detect grooming behavior - Then gave them scenarios - Had to identify , grooming, non-grooming, or unclear - Results failed to detect grooming ⅓ of the time - Why? : many behaviors we consider grooming are also consider normal child adult interactions They can identify after it happened ( Hindsight bias) Why do adults fail to recognize CSA? - Adults under estimate the likelihood the grooming behaviours lead to sexual abuse in the same sex adult relationship - Adults perception is that CSA is between opposite genders not same sex - Most parents feel their child is at low risk so they feel do not need attraction to educate their children Children detecting children - Parents do not pass knowledge to grooming of child - Parents do mention sexual assault strangerr danger and familiar danger - Why do parents not educate they do not know enough and are afraid it may scare them Can children detect grooming?  - Children ages ( 6-11) were read short stories about an adult child interaction With grooming behavior - Location: secondary location private ( teachers office) or public (school gym) - Frequency: Number of occurrences single or multiple times - Return does the child return or no return Results? - Only 18% of children detected grooming - Children were no better at detecting grooming in the worse conditions - Only 19% of the 18% said they would tell someone - Older children 9-11 had a higher liley hood of grooming detection Legal system ( lack of ) Focus - Less than 10% expert testimony mention grooming - Only 1.8 % of layers ask about grooming Age - Younger children and under more likely to be victimized by family members - Older children more at risk to be victimized by people outside the family Kidnapping and abduction - Kidnapping: Taking a person and physically holding them in some location against their will Often for ransom - Abduction: Taking of a child by one parent or caregiver in a custodial dispute Child kidnapping - Family member - Acquaintance - Stanger In the US 58K approx stranger kidnapping Timing: majority of kidnap children by stagers are murder with the three hours 47% in one hour 76% dead within 3 hours and 89% dead in 24 hours Kidnapping in Canada Crimes from 1970 - 2010 - Incidents: 147 child abductions (resulting in murder) -- 155 child victims and 93 offenders - Offenders: 77% demonstrated a sexual motivation for their crimes; 24% involved in prior crimes involving children - Victims: 84% female; mean age of 11.6; White (77%) Indigenous Victims: between the ages of 14 - 16 - Indigenous victims represented 25% Stranger Danger? - In 2019, there was 40K accounts of missing children - 30K reports runaway - Parental abduction 122, stranger kidnapping 16 - Between 13-20 Canada issues 56 amber alerts which invaded 74 abducted children Media and kidnapping - Report a distorted images - A lot of the times they ficus of certain demographics and strangers kidnappings - 76.5% are about female but equal distributions of abductions - age : 67% were children under 12 - But older 12+ are twice as likely to be abducted - A\older children are more likely to abducted then younger children - Why? Abductions with younger children are more likely to return home Human Trafficking - Canada is identifies as a major source for Human trafficking - Between 2012-2022 4000 reported incidents - 82% reported in big cities - 95% were girls and 24% under the age of 17 New emerging methods of victimization - New and emerging form of child maltreatment - 2001 survey found that 1 out of 5 children is solicited for sex over the internet - Illegal to communicate with a child for the purpose of committing a sexual act (Bill C-15A) - Anyone charged will carry a 5 year prison sentence Internet predators risk factors Child risk factors - Revealing emotional problems - Admitting to being in need of help - Admitting to having low self-esteem - Expressing agreement in chat rooms Internet predators protective factors Protective Factors - Avoid sexually provocative screen names - Sexual predators are more likely to target youth with provocative screen names (US Department of Justice, 2001) - Do not provide personal information - Contact police when sexual solicitation has occurred Interventions will not be asked on exam Unit 3: Child Disclosure Child Sexual Abuse Hysteria ( 1980-1990s) - Children being abused in day care - People day care would make kids do satanic worshipers - Satanic rituals would make children disclose about abuse but also about events that were not true R v. Sterling 1995 - Location: Martensville Saskatchewan - Began with a 2.5 year old with rash on a bum Problems: - Multiple interviews because 'kids are unwilling to disclose everything at once' - Kid were offered rewards for disclosure - Told the kid that their friends were disclosing Bizarre accusations - Stripped naked, placed in a cage suspended from the ceiling  - Forced to watch animal and human mutilation - What these children were saying wasn't actually true Can child witnesses actually be trusted? - If children are interviewed correctly and not asked leading questions then they can be trusted but we shouldn't have a suggestion in the question ( did the man have brown hair?) - Shouldn't be given a reward unless it is at the start or the end for being their not for saying what they need you to say - Kids have a large imagination and we shouldn't put ideas in their head Disclosure of Child Sexual Abuse Child witness as only Evidence CHild witness statement about sexual abuse tend to be the only evidence What if there is Evidence? - When abuse is the first suspected because of external evidence. Do children disclose? - Sometimes they do around 50% of them do disclose Why don't they disclose? Reluctance to Disclose: - Abuser is oftentimes a guardian or close family friend - Avoid feelings of embarrassment and shame - Avoid negative consequences Unclear How Many Children - Do not disclose - Deny when they are interviewed - Recant true allegations Studied found in which adults,college student and minors were questioned about if they were sexually abused? - Results: Delayed disclosure are common, minors are more reluctant then adults but not much different - Take away: the rates of non-disclosure remain consistent - Children can and do refrain from disclosing - Question is how many children? - Researches ranges in disclosure rates from 24% to 96%  - The problem is because if interviewers believes one end of the spectrum will impact on if they believe the child's story or not Problems with Disclosure - False: Some claims of sexual abuse maybe false, may be sexually abused but not the offender that was accused, may be because they were embaressed or rejected ( Eg: trying to be intimate with another but the other rperosn is not interested so out of embarrassment they falsely accuse) - Reluctance? Children who are abused but never disclose will go undetected - Denials: Not all kids who deny abuse have not been abused Case of Brian Banks: - Huge NFL prospect and was 15 years old - Met up with a younger girl where they began to get intimate - He realized it was wrong and walked away - The girl was embarrassed he walked away so she said he raped her - He was sentence to prison on false accusation - Later she confessed by saying she was never raped and Factors Impacting Rates - Disclosure definition: What does it mean? No clear cut definition of disclosure - Research methodologies: listening to interviews or surveying children - Sample: Age, gender, ethnicity etc.. Factors impacting disclosure Child's age - Children are more likely to disclose sexual abuse - Adolescent are more likely to disclose physical abuse - Age 11= golden age, the most disclose are given at this age Gender - Girls are more likely to disclose then boys Case factor - Childs-abuser relationship: Closer relationship the less likely to disclose - Child-fear: fear or rejection after disclosure - Supportive parents Recantation: To withdraw a statement made previously - Rare: ranged from 3-27 % Why does it happen? - Family pressure - Children vulnerability to the influence of adults who do not believe them More likely to Recant: - Family does not believe their allegations - Closely related to the perpetrator - Gender: Boys are more likely to recant - Age: younger children, internalizing abd believing from what the parents have forced them to forgetting - Trauma from the abuse: push away memory so they don't correctly remember Disclosure and Recanting in Court Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome (CSAAS) (1983) - Roland Summit - Proposed a model to outline why child victims of sexual abuse may be reluctant to disclose - A psychiatrist who used 'clinical intuition' - This model is supported by many clinicians and scholars - Used in guidelines and assessments of CSA CSAAS Model - Secrecy: Often pressured by the abuser to keep it a secret - Helplessness: Children feel powerless in the abusive situation - Entrapment and Accommodation: Over time, the child may adapt to the abusive situation as a coping mechanism - Delay, Conflicted and unconvincing disclosures: When children do disclose it is often after a significant delay - Retraction of Disclosure Argued that children who have been sexually Abused may respond with: - Self-blame - Self-doubt  - Have a fear of the perpetrator Have a fear of possible consequences of the disclosure Argued that to survive the abuse, children will make accommodating efforts - Accept the abuse - Keep the abuse a secret Prosecutors often call on experts to testify on CSAAS in legal cases CSAAS is not based on empirical research Summit has been ridiculed: Include the word syndrome and that it was based on his own thought Discussion on whether CSAAS should be admissible in court Unit 4 Children’s Memory in Forensic Context, Sept 23rd Stages of Memory - Perception/Attention; In order for memory to be made you need to pay attention and have to be perceiving something - Encoding: You gather the info and put it in a form that can be held in a memory - Retention/Storage: how the memory is stored over time ( Short term, Longterm) - Retrieval: The act of finding or accessing what has been stored in your memory True and False Memories How are memories measured? - Memory Experiments: Participants are exposed to a list of memory targets ( Word/faces) - They are shown a face or word and then asked to remember then pick out what they had to remember from a list - Both true and false memory can be measured Misinformation effect - Stage 1: Initial phase targets are first presented - Stages 2: Misinformation phases: a district - Stages 3: Test phases: test their memory - Ex: shown a red hat then takes a way and shown a red and green hat then asked to say which one was brought out Memorie theory Constructivism and schema theory - All memories ( True and False) are constructed at the point of encoding - This theory has been debunked and research encountered it Source Monitoring Frame work - Source Monitoring: Cognitive process where we attribute a source to a particular memory - Internal source: Product of our imagination - External Source: Real experience - Creating memory either through a product of our imagination or through real experience - Occurs during encoding and retrieval - Primarily associated with retrieval - Distinctiveness effect: Ability` to discern true memories with phenomenological experience ( you vividly remember the scene of the memory) ( you remember where you placed the curling iron, what position it was, if the lights were on or off etc) Source monitoring and development - Prediction- As we age we are better to discriminate between internal and external sources - 6 and 17 years old were equally accurate in discrimination true memories of what they said vs someone else - 6 years olds were not very good at discriminating what they said and what they thought - Children ( pre-school and elementary) presented with a stroy - Then either guided them through a virtual experience, imagines experience or nothing - Elementary children: Had no effect and no reports false memories - Pre schoolers: reported more false memories in the virtual and imagines condition Fuzzy-Trace Theory - Cognitive and dual process theory - Gist memory: General idea of the idea but lacks specific - Verbatim Memory: Exact representation, you remember the details Verbatim memory: Important because memory repost are the most common evidence Factors - Age: young children verbatim memories less developes - Dekay: verbatim memory decades rapidly Gist memory - Young children can extract gist memory - Young children struggles to connect across multiple factors Errors with Fuzzy Trace - Errors of Omission: Forget what happened entirely and make it up - Errors of commission; Creating a false memory or internal or external Memory of Traumatic Events Many believe the memories we hold for traumatic vs non traumatic events are different Freud: When memories are stressful, we push them out of our awareness Are these accurate? They can be Types of traumatic event: Type 1 - Occurs once Eg; school shooting, tsunami Type 2 - Recurring events Pre/Per Factors Predisposing factors - Innate traits/experiences that occur prior to the event and hinder the memory - E.g., child maltreatment, mental health, child-parent attachment Precipitating factors - Specific to the event and hinders memory formation - E.g., stress Perpetuating factors - Occurs after the event and hinders (or encourages) quantity and quality of the memory - E.g., coping, delay, interview Type 1 traumas - A one time traumatic event is typically remember quite well by the children - Occurs after the event and hinders (or encourages) quantity and quality of the memory E.g., coping, delay, interview Chowchilla Kidnapping (1976) - 26 elementary school children were kidnapped from a school bus - They were buried alive in a trailer under the ground - Dug their way to freedom and were rescued Did they remember? - When interviewed 5 years later -- all children had vivid memories One time traumatic event Pynoos and ANder 1989 - After a sniper attached an elementary school, they interviewed the children - Children who were directly exposed: tended to distort their memory - Children who were not directly exposed: tended to report being closer to the attack Stress can impact memory Children and Forgetting - Most researcher focus on how much can you remember butt some focus on what you're forgetting and how much Why? - Majority of the children were under of the age of 5 years old when the event happened - Did they forget? Or is it childhood amnesia General Take away - One time traumas experience in school years are usually well remembers - True even after a long delay - But there is evidence that these memories Reoccuring Traumatic event s Is Memory better? - Repeated events are better remember than single events - But, these events are often blended into a generic memory, ( one generic memory instead of 50 times of the events) - Makes it hard to remember details about a single experience Maltreatment - Not talked about the same way ‘publicly’ compared to ex: Covid, wars tsunami etc - Dissociation - Atypical patterns of social emotional and cognitive development is linked ot memory impairment Terr 1988 study - Intervewid 4 children after repeated sexual abuse, under the age of 4 - 2 unable to recall any details - 2 had spotty memories - Concluded that repetition of abuse prompted dissociation and thus poor memory Another study - Reviewed forensic interviews of children who experience repeated abuse - Found: Children who were victims of recurring trauma reported more then one time trauma victims - Age difference: Older children remember more Trauma Amnesia: Dissociation - Forget a traumatic events as way to cope  - Research has showed that children who experience extreme trauma are less likely to forget - Conclude: Traumatic stress leads to vivid but highly fragmented memories Age: Abuse that occurs at younger age it is easier to forget Generally: Children remember repeated abuse but may have lack the specifics Increasing suggestibility & False memories Impact of the memoires - Suggestibility: Children susceptibility to suggestive about nonexistent details of witness events ( someone suggest something to them and they take it as it is ex; did the man have brown hair?) - False memories: Children development of memories of entirely new suggested events that never occured ( Maybe they don't remember the persona hair colour sees a bad guy in tv with brown hair and now remember the abuser with having brown hair) Interview - Open ended Questioned: Prompt free recall - Ex; tell me everything that happened when you went to your uncles house - Direct question ( yes/No question) - Ex; You went to your uncles house did you sit on the couch? - We get a lot more info from open ended question - Children are more accurate with open ended questions - The most common practice is the direct question method - Open ended question: Allow children to search their memories unconstrained can lead to the retrieval of all relevant info - Direct question: Should trigger the search of single piece of info - What is the issue: Different type of thinking inviled, two types of memory Interview & open ended question Lamb et al (1988) - Analysed interviews of sexual abused children and their perpetrators - Details given by the child through open-ended question were more likely to be confirmed by the perpetrator - Central detail were more likely reported by the victim and confirmed by the perpetrator through open-ended question O/E questions and Lab studies Hutcheson et al. 1995 - Children might sometimes omit important info in open ended questions  - Younger children 5-6 and older 8-9 children witness an event - Interviewed through o/e question and direct question - Over 70% of children who omitted details in o/e question gave the in direct question - Suggest the children do remember info but they might need more and prompt to retrieve specifics Interviewer bias - Interview who hold prior believes about the event - Mould the interview to maximise disclosure - Interviewer are either given accurate or false information about the event - Children often make inaccurate reps that are consistent with the false info What happens when interviewer has a bi as - Ask specific questions that are leading - Children responses to open ended question are more accurate - Forced choice question compromised the reliability of children might give the answer the child thinks the interviewer wants to hear - Repeating question accuracy decreases and more inaccurate reports Emotional connotation - Interviewer can use subtle and nonverbal cues to communicate bias - These cues set the emotional tone of the interviewer - Goodman et al. 1989 - Children asked to recall the details of an event from 4 years ago ‘interviewer deliberately created a emotional atmosphere - Very few children remember the original event - Children when given these emotion coronation more likely falsely reported something happening Anatomically detailed Dolls - A technique designed to help interview about sexual abuse - But may be potentially suggestive - These dolls do not facilitate accurate reporting and increases errors fro younger children - Very suggestive when the child has not made abuse allegation but the interviewer suspects abuse Multiple suggestive techniques - Specific ;easing question vs specifics leading question, anatomically detail doll, emotional connotation  - More likely to have false or inaccurate memories when more biases techniques are used What is the issues: Consistent false report - Children give that includes a false report that is consistent with the suggestions but not identical - hIghly credible: Researcher have found that these children appear highly credible - Linguistic markers : Do not make differentiate true from false narrative - When children say a true memory or false memory because they are very similar Impact of stress - Cortisol: the stress hormone - The increase release of cortisol during stressful experience - Cortisol assist in memory consolidation Memory trace is impacted of memory trace - Can lead to forgetting - Age related pattern younger children are more likely to be impacted - Gist is accurate vs verbatim is not - Susceptible to distortion Stress during encoding and retrieval Quas and lench 2007 - Children arousal was measure through their heart rate while watching a scary movie during the interview - Interviewer was either (1) supportive (2) unsupportive - Found: Children who were more stressed during films made fewer eros during interview - Found for those in the unsupportive condition higher stress during the film lead to more errors Stress in court - The problem: Being a apart of the CJS can be stressful, talking ot police interviews in court Why is stress impacting retrieval? - Coping: Children may not be able to communicate effectively what happened because they may experience residual stress - Trying to cope rater than searching for information - Cortisol: Helps in memory consolidation - But hinders memory retrieval Impact of delay - Impact and adults are susceptible to forget details after a delay - Especially in children - Younger 6-8 older 9-10 children and adults witnessed an event - 1 day later they were interviewed - Ni significant difference in details remembers - 5 months later were re-interviewed significant drop for children - Age: younger vs older - Children can encode almost as much as much as adults this info will fade a lot quicker especially in younger children i Delays and suggestibility Part 1: Children were either lead to believe false information or tod true info Part 2: Agreement with true info did not change from p1-p2 ( 80%-77%) Agreement with false information decreased ( 22%- 13%) Decreasing suggestibility and false memories Impact of event knowledge - Children knowledge of event is associated with higher accuracy - Ornstein et al. kids with higher knowledge of doctors visit is linked with higher accuracy to target face - Why? Prior knowledge helps the kid encode and integrate relevant details Event suggestibility - Depends on the plausibility - Plausible more suggestive than implausible - Why? Lack of event related to knowledge stored in memory - Important in forsnicsic because for most kids sexual abuse is implausible Event knowledge can - Help children encode and store a memory so they avoid suggestion - Knowledge about similar events increase suggestibility and false memories Impact of multiple interviews - In forensic settings multiple interviews are very likley - Malloy et al. 20027 reported children were interviewed 4.26 times - Interviews with exterior people occurs 1.65 times Suggestive interviews - If over multiple interviews a non experienced event is repeated suggested this leads to the child increasingly believing it - Non suggestive interviews multiples interviews that are non suggestive lead to benefits for children memory Why? - Each interview reactivating the memory - Maintain the memory - Reduce the rate of forgetting - Decreasing suggestibility - Increase recall Suggestive repeated interviews - Children played by themselves for 10 minutes - Then, interviewed 3 weeks later or 3 interviewers 1 week apart - Half randomly assigned to a a biassed interviewer natural interviewer, biassed interviewer told the they were playing with a amn - Best performance: neutral multiple interview - Worst: biassed single interviewer - Age younger children less accurate than older children Impact of source monitoring Mr.Science - Children experience event wit mr science - 3 months later parents read a story to the children wit true or false info about the event s - Children randomly assigned to source monitoring train or not - Results: younger children 3-5 did not benefit from training but older children 6-8 did - Importing accuracy repots did noy deacrese error rate was less than half Unit 5: Interviewing Child victims and witnesses Interviewing children - Forensic interview: A means of gathering info from a child witness - Typically between a child and a police officer or any social worker - Outside of the courtroom Earlier Forensic interview protocols - In the 1980s 3 countries produced a protocol on how to interview child witnesses germany sweden and usa - Ironically these protocols were extremely similar - Encourage the idea of the core principle NICHD National institute of child health and human development - A Protocol that is continuously revised highlights and structures the stages of an interview - Field studies have shown that interviewers trained with NICHD more likely to follow the practices - Open ended question Stages of the NICHD - Stage 1: introduction; interviewer introduces themselves, child introduce them self - Stage 2: Rapport building and narrative practice; engages in RB and in NP - Stage 3: explaining ground rules; basic rules for the interview process ( its okay to say idk), explaining the interview - Stage 4: Substantive phase; interviewer on topic - Stage 5: closing Intro: - Best to have it recorded on audio or video, following a script and include your name and interviewy at the start so easier to follow up on - Gesture of goodwill are appropriate, anything you do or give to make that child feel comfortable - Ask them if theres anything you can do to mak them feel comfortable Rapport Building: - The process of building the trust with the child - Building a interpersonal connection with the child and gaining some evidence - Two benefits are; interpersonal connection minimises distress and narrative practice minimise distress ad get more detailed accounts, allowing the interviewer to understand how the child respond how much details they respond with, this also gives the child opportunity to understand how much detail they should be responding with - Really important we are getting the free recall from the children; do not interrupt them, don't give them any suggestions, let them talk - Know how they typically talk - Use open ended questions avoid yes/no - Engaging in the 10 second rule: Give them time to think and answer and dont have too much silence - Opened ended question can be eg: “ tell me more about…” - Engage in facilitators; Mhm, neat, oh wow okay, Explaining and ground rules - Explaining; do you know why we are meeting?, Explain why you are talking with the child - Ground rules: basically tell what's appropriate to say in the interviewer “ its okay to say no or idk, i’d rather you say no or idk so to say something false,” “its okay to correct me if im wring Substantive phase - Phase of the interview where were talking about the abuse - Using the same techniques in the second stage - But questions are all about the abuse Closing - Debriefing; Going over why the chid met with the interviewer - Encourages any questions - Ensure the are not distressed - Thank you - Worried if parents or guardians will know about the questions they answered Why do we need trained interviewers? Why? - Forensic interviewing is a unique skill - How interviewers talk is not how adults typically talk - Formatted question vs baby babbling We use the language the same as the child; “ child: at granny's house ; whos grandmas” Does NICHD work? Do interviewers actually follow it? - Lawyers, Police officers and social have been shown to to use this techniques Unit 6: Children as eyewitnesses Eyewitness memory: The memory you have after you witness a crime or an event Eyewitness evidence/testimony: The act of reporting these memories Why is this important? - Police investigation - Arresting and charging a suspect  - Convicting or exonerating a suspect in court Types of eyewitness memory: Recall ( like a short answer question) - Criminal descriptions - Report details of a previously witnessed event or persons - Typically conducted through an interview Recognition ( like a MC question) - Identifications - Determine whether a previously seen person is the same as what is currently being viewed - Typically conducted through a lineup Recall memory: Purpose - Provide a basis for the construction of an artist's sketch - Narrows search of possible suspects - Basis for selection of lineup members Proper interview technique - Open-ended - Not suggestive or misleading - Individual interviews Criminal Description - Archival reports - Lab studies Are children giving descriptors and are they useful? - Most useful: Body and internal facial features - Most frequent: clothing , body, exterior facial features Adults vs children - Adults will give around 7-10 descriptors - Children will give around 2-3 depending on age - The older you get the more you give - Does not mean the more you are giving the more accurate it is Child descriptors are good at: - External features - Accessories Child descriptors are poor at: - Weight - Height - Age-most inaccurate Why is this? - Children may have more person description information available - Limited vocabulary and linguistic abilities - Memory encoding strategies Internal vs external facial features Saliency - External facial features may be more salient and thus, children focus more on Language - More words to describe external facial features - E.g., blonde vs. almond-shaped eyes - Interior features require comparison to other features Why children struggle? - Lack of experience - And complex thinking - These things come with age - Own-Age bias: more accurate reporting the ages of the others who are similar age to themselves New Technique Standard person - E.g., was the culprit's hair shorter or longer than mine? Results - Helps increase the number of descriptors - But this is not proportional to accuracy increasing - Most successful when the 'standard' is the same gender as the culprit Eye witness recognition Police line ups: Most common way Function - To gain proof about the likelihood the suspect is the culprit beyond the information provided in the description - culprit -- guilty person who actually committed the crime  - suspect -- person the police think committed the crime - fillers/foils -- known innocent lineup members Two techniques of lineups - Target present: culprit = suspect - Target absent: culprit does not equal suspect Types of line ups - Live lineup - Video lineup - Photolineup Three types of photo lineups Show up: One picture - Only the suspect's photo is shown to the witness - e.g., death-bed ID; suspect is apprehended close (time/place) to crime scene Simultaneous: Many pictures - Suspect picture is placed among fillers - All lineup members are shown at the same time Sequential: Many pictures - Suspect picture is placed among fillers - Lineup members are shown one at a time - Make a decision BEFORE seeing another member - Witness CAN NOT see previous faces Which line up is the best Show up - Pro: leads to absolute judgement - Con: Biassed -- the witness knows who the police suspect Simultaneous - Pro: suspect not known - Con: leads to relative judgement Sequential - Pro: leads to absolute judgement - Con: time pressure and stressful Simultaneous vs sequential Simultaneous - Adults: correct 70-75% of the time - Children: accuracy depends on target presence - target-present: like adults - target-absent: struggle Sequential - Adults: correct 65-70% of the time - Children: struggle Simultaneous and Target presence Target present - Children perform similarly to adults - Younger children (5-9): perform at a similar rate to adults - Older children (9+): no differences with adults' performance Target Absence - Children struggle - Adults outperform children of all ages Child Eyewitness performance Cognitive - Kids actually struggle on target-absent lineups - Recognition Social - Something in the social environment makes them identify innocent suspect - Identification Cognitive Studies Old/New Task - Shown a series of 20 faces one by one - The show a face and ask if this is the face you saw - Hit Rates: A portion of faces that was correctly recognized ( Recognize old faces) - True negative: The proportion of faces correctly labelled as not previously seen ( Recognized a new face) - False Alarms: A proportion of faces incorrectly labelled as previously seen( Have seen the face when they never did) - Miss: The proportion of faces incorrectly labelled as new ( say they have not seen the face when they actually have) Social Studies Target (culprit) task - Participants are exposed to target - Under the assumption they are doing a different task - Then, they become informed and do a lineup task target /culprit identification - select the target face o - only correct identification in target-present lineup - False identification in target-absent lineup Rejection - state they don't see the face - only correct identification in target-absent lineup - Missed identification in target-present lineup Filler identification - identify a filler face - always an error Which one is better Cognitive or Social - One is not better then the other depends on the study Diff between Cognitive or Social Number of Targets - Cognitive: 20+ - Social: Usually one maybe 2 Encoding and recognition - Cognitive: same photo - Social: Different medium Target-Presence - Cognitive Only target-present, They see so many faces - Social: Target-present and target absent Child Witness Performance: Cognitive Recognition & Children - pre-school (4-5): hit rates of 35-40% - younger children (6-8): hit rates of 50-58% - older children (9-11): hit rates of 60-70%  - pre-teens (12-14): hit rates of 70-80% - adults: hit rate of 70-80% Why? Cognitive - Not sufficiently developed in children - Possess a lower decision threshold which suggests that they identify someone that is a weak to moderate match to memory Relative Judgments - Choose the face that 'most' resembles the face in their memory Meta-Cognition - Children cannot reflect on own knowledge - Tend to be overconfident in their decision Children become better with recognition with increasing in age Child Witness performance: Social Identifications & Children - pre-school (4-5): lower correct ID rate (insert), lower correct rejection rate - younger children (6-8): lower correct ID rate (insert), lower correct rejection rate - older children (9-11): same correct ID rate (insert), lower correct rejection rate - pre-teens (12-14): insert lower correct rejection rate Why? - Identification errors may not be a result of poor memory, but rather social pressure - Children feel pressure to choose - Choose the person who looks 'most like' the suspect - Police = authority figure Social Property - Hypothesis: a lineup task that should result in 100% identification accuracy indicates more social pressure than cognitive factors - 2 lineup conditions: familiar cartoon characters; unfamiliar faces - Children and adults showed 99% accuracy on the cartoon character target-present lineup - Children struggled with the target-absent lineups -- high false positive rate Age Appropriate Lineup Techniques Mr. Nobody (aka Wildcard Technique) - Increase children's correct rejection rate by providing a salient photo to represent 'not here' - Why? Maybe children perceive making a 'correct choice' with making a selection - Does it work: Yes, lower than adults Elimination Technique - Simultaneous lineup but with two decisions - Two Variations: slow elimination; fast elimination - 1. relative judgement - 2. absolute judgement - Does it work: Yes reduces number of false identification, lesser in adults Age Appropriate Reflector Variables Reflector Variables - Use supporting evidence to help estimate the likelihood of suspect guilt, after an identification has been made Reflector Variable - Still require a face lineup - THEN, do something else to help assess the likelihood that the face selected is correct Confidence-Identification - Explored children's confidence ratings as a mechanism to infer a decision - Sequential lineup - For each face, the children rated how confident they were that the face was the culprit Multiple Independent Lineups - Show the child multiple different lineups (e.g., face, body, voice) - Why? If the child repeatedly selects the suspect, then higher chance they are guilty. - If they only selected the suspect face = innocent suspect??? Multiple Independent Lineups Target-Present: - Children identified the suspect across the lineup Target-Absent: - Children identified the suspect in the face lineup, but rarely more - Does it work: YES! We can use the number of identification of a suspect to infer likelihood of guilt Why care? - Blind Lineup Administration: Should not know who the suspect is - Bias-Reducing Instructions for Eyewitnesses: may or may not be present - Unbiased Lineups: Suspect should not stand out from fillers  - Confidence Ratings: Obtain a clear confidence statement Unit 7: Adult perception on Child Victims and Witnesses Child Witness - Witness: didn’t necessarily see event, but provides evidence based on things they have heard or seen - Eyewitness: saw event with own eyes – provides identifying evidence When Children are involved both are considered as doubtful The Two-Factor Model of Credibility - Perceived credibility of child witnesses: Honesty and cognitive ability Age related differences Honesty: being truthful - Younger Children ( 12& below): Viewed as most Honest - Older Children ( 12& above): Honesty becomes Dishonesty Children are more honest with less cognitive ability Cognitive Ability: the capacity of an individual to perform mental processes e.g., reasoning, memory, attention, decision making - Younger (