Citation

Tobey AE, Goodman GS. Child Abuse Negl. 1992; 16(6): 779-796.

Affiliation

State University of New York, Buffalo.

Comment In:

Child Abuse Negl 1994;18(3):287-90

Copyright

(Copyright © 1992, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

1486508

Abstract

We examined effects of participation and forensic context on 4-year-old children's testimony. Children in "participant" and "police" conditions actively participated in games with a "babysitter"; each child in the "observer" condition watched a videotape of a child and the babysitter playing. Eleven days later, children were individually questioned about the event. Before the interview began, children in the police condition talked to a police officer who said the babysitter might have done something bad. Comparison of participant- and observer-condition performance indicated that participation increased free-recall accuracy concerning actions that took place and lowered suggestibility. Comparison of participant- and police-condition performance indicated that forensic context led to increased error in free recall and additional comments to misleading questions. However, forensic context also resulted in higher accuracy on an age-identification task and did not affect children's accuracy in answering abuse-related questions.

Language: en