Children's Comprehension and Memory of Event Sequences and Its Implications for Maltreatment Disclosure

儿童对事件序列的理解和记忆及其对虐待披露的影响

• 批准号: 10447007
• 负责人: Jessica Zoe Klemfuss
• 金额: $ 52.92万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-IRVINE
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-07-09 至 2026-03-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10447007
• 关键词: 12 year old; Adult; Age; Archives; Attention; Caregivers; Child; Child Abuse and Neglect; Child Welfare; Code; Cognition; Cognitive; Comprehension; Confusion; Data; Decision Making; Development; Diagnostic; Disclosure; Education; Elements; Empirical Research; Episodic memory; Event; Failure; Foundations; Goals; Guidelines; Health; Interview; Investigation; Knowledge; Laboratories; Laboratory Study; Lead; Legal; Light; Linguistics; Literature; Memory; Mental Health; Outcome; Participant; Positioning Attribute; Reporting; Research; Respondent; Risk; Role; Sampling; Secure; Services; Short-Term Memory; Testing; Time; Transcript; Variant; Work; age difference; age related; base; cognitive development; cognitive load; cognitive testing; contextual factors; convict; course sequence; discount; effectiveness testing; executive function; expectation; experience; experimental study; improved; innovation; interest; maltreatment; physical conditioning; psychologic; response; skills; stem

Project Summary/Abstract Child maltreatment is widely recognized as a serious threat to children's well-being and health. In maltreatment cases, the fidelity and credibility of the child witness/victim's report is often critical to securing an outcome in the best interest of the child. Eliciting information from children about the time-course and sequence of alleged maltreatment is central in these cases. The field of child interviewing is actively debating how best to question children about sequence in these cases with little existing empirical research on which to draw. There is a pressing need to identify strategies for obtaining information from even young, cognitively vulnerable children about the time course and sequence of alleged events. The proposed research will determine (1) how children are questioned about event sequence, and how they respond, across age, in maltreatment investigations (2) how differences in children's age, comprehension, working memory (WM), attention, and episodic memory may impact their abilities to accurately recall event sequence, and (3) how questions and child responses about sequence impact the likelihood that jury-eligible adults' will understand and believe children's allegations of abuse. These aims will be achieved via four proposed projects. In Project 1, the research team will code a sample of 581 legal transcripts to assess the sequencing content included in the prompts used to question child witnesses about their alleged maltreatment experiences and confusion in children's responses to the questions. Of particular interest is identifying instances of potential ambiguity for young children. In Projects 2 and 3, the research team will conduct laboratory studies with 644 4- to 12-year-olds to test the roles of cognition and context in children's responses to sequencing questions like those identified in the maltreatment case transcripts. Memory and response biases are predicted to be most pronounced with decreasing age and WM, and when attention is divided. In Project 3, the research team will examine children's responses to sequencing questions with potentially ambiguous interpretations. Their interpretations of the questions' intent are expected to vary with age and WM in predictable ways. Finally, in Project 4 the research team will examine mock juror interpretations of sequencing questions and children's responses. Participants from across the U.S. (N = 300) will rate the credibility of adult questioners and child respondents selected from Projects 1-3 and the accuracy with which mock jurors understand various sequencing questions and responses from our laboratory studies will be determined. The proposed work is innovative in that it represents a multi-dimensional approach to examining the cognitive, developmental, and contextual appropriateness of varying sequencing questions asked of children in maltreatment investigations and determining the extent to which these questions may impact just decisions in maltreatment cases. This topic has been surprisingly understudied given the substantial implications for understanding the foundations of children's sequential knowledge and memory, and for improving health-relevant legal outcomes in cases of child maltreatment.

项目摘要/摘要 儿童虐待被广泛认为是对儿童的福祉和健康的严重威胁。在虐待中 案件，儿童证人/受害者报告的忠诚和信誉通常对于确保结果至关重要 孩子的最大利益。从儿童那里获取有关所谓的时间课和顺序的信息 在这些情况下，虐待至关重要。儿童面试领域正在积极辩论如何最好地质疑 在这些情况下，关于序列的孩子几乎没有现有的实证研究。有一个 紧迫的需要确定从年轻，认知脆弱的孩子那里获得信息的策略 关于时间课程和所谓事件的顺序。拟议的研究将确定（1）儿童如何 质疑事件序列及其在虐待调查中的跨年龄跨年龄的响应（2） 儿童年龄，理解，工作记忆（WM），注意力和情节记忆的差异如何 可能会影响他们准确回忆事件顺序的能力，以及（3）问题和儿童回答如何 关于序列影响陪审团成年人理解并相信儿童指控的可能性 虐待。这些目标将通过四个拟议的项目实现。在项目1中，研究团队将编码 样本的581份法律成绩单来评估用于提问的提示中包含的测序内容 儿童见证人关于他们所谓的虐待经历和混乱的儿童回应 问题。特别有趣的是确定对幼儿潜在歧义的实例。在项目2中 3，研究小组将与644至12岁的孩子进行实验室研究，以测试 儿童对测序问题的回答中的认知和背景，例如虐待中发现的问题 案例成绩单。预计记忆和响应偏见最为明显，年龄降低和 WM，当注意力分裂时。在项目3中，研究小组将检查儿童对 用潜在模棱两可的解释进行测序问题。他们对问题的意图的解释 预计会随着年龄的增长而变化，并以可预测的方式变化。最后，在项目4中，研究小组将检查 模拟陪审员对测序问题和儿童回答的解释。来自美国各地的参与者 （n = 300）将评估从项目1-3和 模拟陪审员了解实验室的各种测序问题和回答的准确性 将确定研究。拟议的工作具有创新性，因为它代表了一种多维方法 检查不同测序问题的认知，发展和上下文适当性 询问儿童在虐待调查中，并确定这些问题的程度 在虐待案件中的决定只是决定。鉴于 了解儿童的顺序知识和记忆的基础，以及 在儿童虐待的情况下，改善与健康相关的法律结果。