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White Paper on Interviewing Child Witnesses (Part 1)
Thomas D. Lyon, Jodi A. Quas, & Michael E. Lamb
DRAFT—Please do not quote or cite
This is a preliminary (and partial) draft. Your comments are welcome.
tlyon@law.usc.edu; jquas@uci.edu; mel37@cam.ac.uk
1. Introduction
2. Question-types
a. From asking to telling
b. Invitations and cued invitations
c. Directives: wh- questions
d. Option-posing questions: yes-no and forced-choice
e. Suggestive questions: tag, negative-term, and presumptive
3. Repetition
a. Repeated questions within interviews
b. Repeated interviews
4. Beyond suggestive questions: Biased interviewing
a. Selective reinforcement
b. Stereotype induction
c. Misinformation
d. Misinformation supplied to peers and parents
e. Guided imagination
f. Unscripted biased interviewing
5. Improving interviews
a. Interview instructions
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b. Narrative practice rapport building
c. Open-ended introduction to abuse topic
d. Supportive interviewing for reluctant disclosers
6. Child and Event characteristics
a. Event type
b. Age
c. Developmental delays
7. Number and Time
a. Multiple events
b. Temporal details
8. Encouraging adoption of best practices
a. Training with feedback
b. Videotaping of interviews
c. Court scrutiny and regulation of questioning
1 Introduction
Each year, over 3 million reports are made in the United States to social services
regarding suspected child maltreatment (NCANDS, 2011; 2012) and about a third of
these are ‘substantiated’ or deemed credible by investigative agencies each year (U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on Children, Youth, and
Families, 2009). The investigations triggered by these reports play essential roles in
deciding whether or not interventions need to be undertaken by child protective service
agencies or criminal justice professionals. Many of these investigations include, as a
crucial component, interviews with the suspected victim or victims. Information is often
needed from them to confirm the maltreatment, identify the perpetrator, assess the
frequency or duration of the incidents, and determine whether children are at risk of
further maltreatment. Often, the suspected victim is the only witness with the requisite
knowledge to provide the needed information (Bruck & Ceci, 1999; Lamb, Sternberg, &
Esplin, 1994), placing considerable demands on the child to be as complete and
accurate as possible.
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Psychological research examining children’s abilities as witnesses has
undergone a revolution in the past 30 years. Researchers were originally inspired by
extensive media coverage in the 1980s and 1990s of a series of criminal court cases in
which preschool children accused day care providers and teachers of bizarre acts of
sexual abuse (Ceci & Bruck, 1995). Examination of the investigative interviews in these
cases typically revealed highly suggestive questioning. Researchers mimicked these
techniques and demonstrated high rates of false responding, and, in the extreme cases,
the formation of false memories (Bruck & Ceci, 2009). This work fundamentally altered
our understanding of contextual influences on children’s errors, and had an enormous
impact on the court cases, resulting in the reversal of a number of high-profile
convictions (Ceci & Bruck, 1999).
Following the wave of influential research documenting conditions that contribute
to errors, heightened suggestibility, and false reports, many researchers turned their
attention toward identifying and testing methods of maximizing children’s productivity.
Results have shown that if interviewers adequately build rapport with children, provide
guidance regarding the purpose and method of an interview, and ask questions that
encourage children to give detailed narrative responses, interviews can be enormously
productive without suggestion.
The purpose of this White paper is to provide research-based advice on best
practices for interviewing suspected child victims and witnesses. Before reviewing the
relevant research, we should note that we use the word ‘children’ when referring to
preschoolers, school-aged children, and adolescents. We caution, though, that one
should not underestimate the large differences among age groups in their capabilities
and inclinations. Furthermore, relatively little research has examined adolescent witness
abilities, and a surprisingly large proportion has focused on preschoolers. When we
refer to “child witnesses,” we are referring for the most part to children who are
suspected victims of maltreatment, usually sexual abuse. Although children can
obviously witness any event, they are most likely to appear as witnesses when they are
the victims of sexual abuse, physical abuse, or witnessed domestic violence (Goodman
et al. 1999; Plotnikoff & Woolfson, 2009)).
In this paper, we review both analog and field research. Each has advantages
and disadvantages. By analog studies, we mean those that simulate forensically
relevant factors under controlled conditions. We reserve the term field research to refer
to investigations of actual interviews with children suspected of being abused. Analog
studies have a number of benefits. First, one can draw causal conclusions from the
results. Field research is typically limited in that it identifies correlations but often cannot
specify a causal effect, both because of omitted variable bias (in which a third factor
explains the correlation between any two factors) and misspecification of causal
direction (in which a correlation between A and B does not suggest that A causes B but
that B causes A). For example, field research has found that children are more
productive when interviewers use more facilitators (such as “uh huh” in response to
children’s utterances (Hershkowitz, 2009). However it may be the case that more
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productive children elicit more facilitators, rather than facilitators increasing children’s
productivity.
Second, in analog studies, the details of the to-be-remembered event are known,
often with an objective record readily available. Field research often suffers from
uncertainty about a child’s actual experience, including whether abuse actually
occurred. For example, field research has found that children disclosing sexual abuse
provide additional details when re-questioned using human figure drawings (Aldridge,
Lamb, Sternberg, Orbach, Esplin, & Bowler, 2004). However, it usually cannot be
determined if those additional details are accurate. Analog research, in contrast, has
allowed for clearer identification of how a number of important factors affect the
accuracy and completeness of children’s reports. Such has been accomplished by
varying facets of to-be-remembered experiences (e.g., whether it is stressful or not,
whether children directly participate or not), intervening factors between the to-beremembered event and interview (e.g., delay, exposure to intervening information),
features of the interview or interviews (e.g., question or interview repetition, type of
instruction, familiarity of the interviewer), and characteristics of the child (e.g., age,
maltreatment).
Analog studies, though, also suffer from limitations, most notably the uncertain
generalizability of the results to actual forensic interviews. This raises the issue of
external validity. As Ceci and Bruck (1995) emphasized, it is important to keep in mind
"the boundary conditions that might limit any generalization from the science to the case
at bar" (p. 273). In the law, the issue of whether research applies to a particular case is
known as “fit” or as materiality, and is governed by the rules of evidence and the case
law interpreting those rules (Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 1993). In both
the law and psychology, the issue is crucial in deciding whether research should affect
our judgment regarding the veracity of an allegedly abused child. Application of
research to real cases requires one to carefully assess the methodology of the
research, the characteristics of the participants, and the research results, and to
compare the research to the characteristics of the interviewing and the child interviewed
in a particular case. Particularly in the context of abuse allegations, analog research
often suffers from examining to-be-remembered events that lack salience and personal
involvement, on the one hand, and questioning that lacks serious personal and social
significance, on the other.
Field research is enormously useful in providing insight into interviewing
practices as they occur naturally rather than as they are simulated in the lab. The
recordings of actual interviews in high profile sexual abuse cases in the 1980s enabled
researchers to identify heretofore underexplored suggestive methods. More recent
recordings of forensic interviews by interviewers with varying levels of training has
enabled researchers to assess the utility of research-based protocol interviewing and
has allowed clearer insight into the type and prevalence of specific interviewer
behaviors and potential biases in the real world. Finally, since field research concerns
interviews about abuse or exposure to violence, it addresses the concern that analog
research on children’s productivity inadequately simulates the dynamics of how children
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disclose abuse, a personally significant, secretive, shameful, and potentially
embarrassing experience.
Of course, the advantages of analog and field research can sometimes be
combined. For example, within ethical limits, analog research can be conducted on
events that elicit secrecy or embarrassment (Lyon et al., 2008; 2014). Moreover, analog
research can recruit parents and professional interviewers as interviewers, and can
allow them to question children without scripts in order to assess how they are likely to
behave in field interviews (Gilstrap, 2004; Powell & Hughes-Scholes, 2008). Similarly,
field research can strengthen its causal claims by systematically varying questioning
methods in the field (e.g., Cyr & Lamb, 2009; Hershkowitz et al., 2014; Lamb et al.,
2009; Orbach et al., 2000; Sternberg et al., 2001), and can confront uncertainty about
ground truth by analyzing cases with corroborative evidence (Lamb, et al., 2007; 2009;
Malloy, Quas, & Lyon, 2008).
Much of the field research discussed here was conducted using the NICHD
protocol. Moreover, many of our recommendations echo elements of the protocol. It was
developed by Michael Lamb and colleagues (e.g., Lamb et al., 2008; Sternberg, Lamb,
Esplin, Orbach, & Hershkowitz, 2002) based on the large body of science on children’s
social, cognitive, and emotional development, and the research team’s long-standing
expertise conducting developmental research and applying that work to legal settings.
The protocol distilled and integrated knowledge from multiple literatures to create a set
of concrete recommendations about how to structure a forensic interview with a
suspected child victim. The protocol has been adopted formally in several countries
and is widely used in many others. It is, as well, taught in mandatory training programs
for interviewers across the globe. The NICHD protocol is described in multiple scientific
publications, book chapters, and books (Lamb, La Rooy, Malloy, & Katz, 2011; Lamb et
al., 2007; Lyon, Lamb, & Myers, 2009; Stewart, Katz, & La Rooy, 2011), and its efficacy
has been rigorously investigated for nearly 20 years. The protocol is taught in
workshops, including multi-day trainings, and is available via the NICHD website for free
(http://nichdprotocol.com/). Key elements of the protocol have been endorsed by
several recent practice guides (American Professional Society on the Abuse of
Children, 2012; Walker, 2013), and can be found in other interviewing guidelines and
protocols (Anderson, 2013 [Cornerhouse protocol]; DeClue, et al., 2012 [Oregon
guidelines]; Lyon, 2005 [Ten-step interview]; Ministry of Justice, 2011 [Achieving Best
Evidence] Saywitz & Camparo, 2014 [Narrative Elaboration]; State of Michigan
Governor’s Task Force, 2011 [Michigan guidelines]; Yuille, Cooper, & Herve, 2009
[Step-wise Guidelines]).
We begin our review with a description of different question types, moving from
more open-ended to more suggestive. We argue that analyzing how questions are
phrased is a crucial first step in understanding the potential productivity and accuracy of
children’s reports. Second, we consider repeated questions and repeated interviews,
and identify when they are likely to be productive and when they undermine children’s
reports. Third, we examine the myriad ways in which research has shown that
interviewer bias may undermine interview quality. Fourth, we identify research-based
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methods for improving interviews. Fifth, we describe the role that development plays in
affecting children’s productivity and accuracy, paying particular attention to the
mechanisms underlying these effects and the conditions that give rise to different
patterns of effects. Sixth, we review research examining the challenges inherent in
attempting to elicit information about time and number. Finally, we describe strategies
for increasing the use of best-practice recommendations in the field.
2 Question types
2a Overview: From asking to telling
There is widespread agreement among scholars that interviewers should avoid
“leading” or “suggestive” questions (Bruck & Ceci, 1995; Faller, 2015). However, in
child witness research, there is a lack of uniformity regarding the definition of “leading”
and “suggestive” questions (Peterson, Dowden, & Tobin, 1999), despite the field’s
recognition that terms should be operationalized in order for research to be comparable
and replicable. For example, whether yes-no questions (without additional suggestive
elements) are “suggestive” or “leading” is subject to dispute (Ceci & Friedman, 2000).
Disagreements over the definitions of question types have made it difficult to compare
results across studies, and to apply the results of research to actual cases.
Further compounding the confusion is the fact that “leading question” is a
common phrase in the law. What is “leading” in court may not be considered “leading”
by psychologists (e.g. Goodman, Bottoms, Schwartz-Kenney, & Rudy, 1991).
Furthermore, the legal definition of “leading” is imprecise (Black’s Law Dictionary, 2014).
Nor does the law make any clear proscriptions regarding the use of leading questions.
When attorneys question young children in court, “leading” questions are often allowed,
on the basis that reluctance and immaturity may need to be overcome (Mueller &
Kirkpatrick, 2012).
In order to minimize confusion, we avoid altogether use of the term “leading
question,” and qualify our use of the term “suggestive.” We will speak in terms of a
continuum of question types. At one end of the continuum, the witness provides the
information, and at the other end, the interviewer provides the information. The
underlying problem with questions that have been termed “leading” is that the
interviewer provides the information. Borrowing from a scheme developed to code
interviewers’ questions in the field, the continuum includes invitations (usually referred
to as “free recall”), cued-invitations, directives (usually wh- questions), option-posing
questions (including yes-no and forced-choice questions), and suggestive questions
(including, but not limited to, tag questions, negative term questions, and “presumptive”
questions). We provide more precise definitions below.
Historically, the distinction has been termed the difference between a “narrative”
and an “interrogatory” approach (Lipman, 1911; Stern, 1910; Pear & Wyatt, 1914.) It
often overlaps with the distinction in memory research between “recall” questions and
“recognition” questions. In recall, the witness must generate the to-be-remembered
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information. Free recall is accessed when prompts provide no specific memory cues:
Requesting that someone ‘tell everything that happened’ is considered a free recall
question, because it does not specify or cue particular aspects of memory. What is
recalled depends on the memory search conducted by the person being questioned.
When a recall question does specify the information requested, it is referred to as cued
recall. In recognition the witness merely has to affirm or deny information or choose
among options presented by the interviewer.
A classic finding in the memory literature is that, although free recall responses
tend to be accurate, they tend to be incomplete (Pear & Wyatt 1914; see review in Pipe
et al. 2003). Many of the details left out of recall responses are available in memory and
can be elicited, either by asking further recall questions, or by asking recognition
questions, which usually elicit answers, although those answers are more likely to be
inaccurate than those elicited using recall questions. In children, the difference between
recall and recognition is accentuated because children’s recall is particularly poor
whereas their recognition abilities are quite good (Fivush 1993; see Lamb et al., 2008;
Ornstein, Baker-Ward, Gordon, & Merritt, 1997, for reviews). However, a recurrent
theme in this paper is that interviewers too easily give up on attempting to elicit recall
from child witnesses, and move too quickly to recognition questions.
A related problem is that it is often difficult to disentangle the effects of question
type from the effects of question content, unless the researchers hold the content
constant while varying the form of the questions. If participants remember some
content better than others, questions addressing that content will be answered more
completely and more accurately, independent of question type. For example,
Goodman, Hirschman, Hepps and Rudy (1991) asked children both “specific” questions
and “misleading” questions, and one might compare accuracies across the different
types in order to address the relative suggestiveness of misleading questions.
However, because the specific and misleading questions asked about different details
of the to-be-remembered event, differences in accuracy between the two types of
question could have been due to differences in memory for the different details.
At the same time that we view question-type as an important factor in assessing
the completeness and accuracy of the information elicited, it is important to
acknowledge that it is but one factor to consider. One cannot simply count the number
of suggestive questions in order to assess how suggestive an interview is (Bruck &
Ceci, 2004). Rather, one must consider other indicia of interviewer bias. Similarly, one
must keep in mind the nature of the to-be-remembered event, the characteristics of the
child (including age), and the possible external influences on the child’s report
independent of the nature of the interview. Nevertheless, we believe that greater
attention to question-types will enable researchers and practitioners to get a better
grasp on the implications of research findings for practice. For example, many research
findings can best be understood as examining how question-type interacts with other
factors in affecting children’s reports.
2b. Invitations and cued invitations
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Invitations are defined as open-ended, input-free utterances used to elicit freerecall responses from children. They can be phrased as questions (e.g., “what
happened?”) or as imperatives (e.g., “tell me what happened”). They do not restrict the
child’s focus except in a general sense. Cued invitations follow-up on information
previously mentioned by the child, and cue for free-recall elaboration about details
previously mentioned (e.g., “you said [child’s statement]; what happened next?”, “you
said [child’s statement]; tell me more about that”). By structuring recall of experienced
events, associating them with actions that have been mentioned, and breaking them
into smaller units or segments of time, cued invitations help young children to
reconstruct past events and to elaborate upon their narrative accounts, avoiding
interviewer contamination during the recall.
Surprisingly little analog research has examined the productivity and accuracy of
children’s reports when questioned with cued invitations. Brown and colleagues (2013)
questioned 5- to 7-year-old children six weeks after their interaction with a confederate
in which they played a dress up game and had their picture taken. The interviewers
followed the NICHD protocol, which included rapport-building, ground rules, and
narrative practice (all of which are described below). Most of the questions were
invitations (65%). About 90% of the information children reported in response to
invitations was correct, as was a little over 80% of the information children reported in
response to cued invitations was correct. Cued invitations elicited as much information
per prompt as did invitations.
Field studies have demonstrated that cued invitations, particularly those that
remind children of actions they have previously mentioned, constitute effective ways of
triggering the recall of information by alleged victims as young as four years of age. For
example, Lamb et al. (2003) reported that, on average, almost one-half of the
information 4- to 8-year-olds provided came in response to free-recall prompts,
regardless of age. As expected, older children reported more details in total and in their
average responses to invitations than the younger children did, but the proportion of
details elicited using free-recall prompts did not increase with age. Cued invitations
that reference actions appear to be most productive (Lamb et al., 2003). This is
particularly helpful for abuse investigations, because in most cases the primary concern
is whether a suspect familiar to the child performed specific acts.
Using contradictions as an index of inaccuracy, Lamb and colleagues (Lamb &
Fauchier, 2001; Orbach & Lamb, 2001) found that invitations did not elicit
contradictions, nor were they contradicted by subsequent information in the interviews.
Using agreement between victim and perpetrator as an index of accuracy, Lamb and
colleagues (Lamb, Orbach, Heshkowitz, Horowitz, & Abbott, 2007) showed that
information elicited by invitations was more likely to be confirmed by perpetrators than
information elicited by other prompts.
Unfortunately, interviewers are unlikely to use invitations and cued invitations
extensively unless they are specially trained. Descriptive studies of forensic interviews
conducted in various parts of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Sweden,
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Finland, Norway, and Israel have consistently demonstrated that forensic interviewers
used invitations and cued-invitations quite rarely, even with the knowledge that such
prompts each reliably elicit more information than more focused prompts (e.g.,
Cederborg, Orbach, Sternberg, & Lamb, 2000; Craig, Scheibe, Raskin, & Dodd, 1999;
Cyr et al., 2006; Davies, Westcott, & Horan, 2000; Korkman et al., 2006; Lamb,
Hershkowitz, Sternberg, Esplin et al., 1996; Sternberg, Lamb, Davies, & Westcott, 2001;
Sternberg et al., 1996; Thoreson et al., 2006; Walker & Hunt, 1998. See Lamb et al.,
2007, 2008, 2015 for reviews).
2c. Directives/ wh- questions
“Directives” have been defined as recall questions that refocus the child on
aspects or details of the allegation that they have previously mentioned, primarily using
Wh- questions. Interviewers can supplement children’s free recall through the judicious
use of wh- questions, particularly open-ended wh- questions. However, they are
generally less productive than invitations and cued invitations, because they often
require only short answers about aspect of the events or objects that may or may not be
well encoded or remembered.
Directives can help children provide complete reports. First, there are large
developmental improvements in children’s ability to self-generate cues that enable them
to recall information (Bjorklund & Muir 1988). For example, when asked to recall an
event, adults naturally ask themselves questions about the context (e.g., “who was
there?”) in order to remember additional details. Therefore, the interviewer may need to
scaffold the child’s performance by asking the appropriate specific or cued questions.
Second, children are likely to omit details that are forensically important, because they
are unaware of their importance (Fivush 1993). For example, in order to determine if
touching is sexually motivated, it is relevant to consider whether the suspect touched
himself during the genital touching. Children who are unaware of the mechanics of sex,
however, may not spontaneously mention this fact. Third, as they mature, children
acquire the ability to tell more elaborate and convincing narratives that include, for
example, the thoughts and feelings of the protagonist (McCabe & Peterson 1991). They
are more likely to omit details that an observer would use to assess their credibility.
Fourth, if children are motivated to conceal information, they are more likely to do so
when asked for free recall than when asked more direct questions (Pipe & Wilson
1994).
A number of studies have found that wh- questions, particularly those involving
central details of the event, supplement children’s recall and are highly accurate.
(Central details are generally defined as “plot-relevant” (Brown et al., 2013; Peterson &
Bell, 1996).) Hamond and Fivush (1991) questioned 3- to 4-year-olds 6 months or 18
months after their trip to Disneyworld. They initially asked free recall questions (“Can
you tell me about Disneyworld,” “What happened first”), and then wh- and a few yes/no
questions (e.g. “Who went with you?”, ”Did you eat anything there?”). The authors
found that “across age groups and retention intervals, only 22% of all children’s recall
was spontaneously generated” (p. 442). Hence, children provided over 4 times as
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much information when free recall was supplemented with more specific questions.
Fivush (1993) summarizes this research by noting that “relying solely on preschooler’s
responses to open-ended questions about what happened may seriously underestimate
their event memories” (p. 9). Moreover, despite the move toward wh- questions,
children’s accuracy remained very high. Fivush, Hamond and Fromhoff (1987) noted
that “virtually all of the information recalled was confirmed by the parents” (p. 397).
Similarly, Hamond and Fivush found that “inaccuracies in children’s protocols were
virtually nonexistent” (p. 437). However, studies in which parents are asked about the
events in order to measure accuracy might over-estimate children’s accuracy (Bruck,
Ceci, & Hembrooke, 2002). Hudson (1990a) was able to more systematically assess
accuracy in a laboratory study. She found that 4- to 6-year-old children questioned
about “movement workshops” after one day and/or four weeks did not err more in
response to wh- questions (e.g. “What songs did you sing?”) than to free recall
questions (“What happened in the first workshop?”).
Peterson and Bell (1996) interviewed 2- to 13-year-olds about injuries that
required a trip to the hospital emergency room, both 6 days and 6 months after the
event. They first asked children a “free-recall” question (“Tell me about when you hurt
yourself. What happened?”), and then “probed-recall” using wh- questions (e.g. “Who
was with you”) (p. 3049). The authors found that supplementing free recall with whquestions substantially increased the amount of information elicited from the children,
particularly the younger children. For example, at the six month interview 40% of the
central details of the event recalled by 3-year-olds’ was in response to the free-recall
question. Hence, asking wh- questions enabled children to provide over twice as much
information. Children’s free recall was virtually error-free, and by 3 years of age
children were at least 88% accurate in responding to wh- questions about central
details. Nine-year-olds produced a higher proportion of information about central details
in their free recall at six months (66%), and were over 90% accurate in responding to
wh- questions. Based on a follow-up interview two years after the event, Peterson
(1997) concluded that “[c]hildren who are at least three years of age are highly accurate
when recalling both what happened and who was there at the time of their injury and
hospital treatment. Even two years after the target events occurred, 80-90% of the
information they provided was correct.” (See Peterson, 2012, for a review.)
Leippe, Romanczyk, and Manion (1991) had 84 participants (5- to 6-year-olds, 9to 10-year-olds, and adults) interact with a male experimenter who repeatedly touched
the participant with his hands and a small instrument (an aesthesiometer) on the
participants’ hands, arms, and face. The experimenter also invited the participant to
touch him, and both the experimenter and participant removed some of their outer
clothing. Five minutes later, participants were asked a free recall question about the
episode (“Tell me everything you can remember about what happened while you and
that man were together in the room”), and five “open-ended” wh- questions (“Can you
tell me anything else about.. what the man looked like, what the participant said, what
they did together, and what the room was like). When participants’ free recall was
supplemented with the open-ended questions, the children used over twice as many
words, with 86% (5- to 6-year-olds) to 93% accuracy (9- to 10-year-olds). As the
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authors noted, “[t]hough rather terse in responding to the global ‘what happened’ query,
the 9- to 10-year-olds came forth with a veritable torrent of words when prompted by a
few non-directive, open-ended questions” (p. 376). The adults’ word production
increased less dramatically when asked the additional questions, and their accuracy
(94%) was no greater than the older children’s, but better than the younger children’s.
However, as the wh- questions become more specific, accuracy declined.
Leippe and his colleagues also asked each participant up to 31 “specific questions,”
one-third of which were very specific wh- questions that could be answered with one or
two words. Although the researchers did not statistically compare the accuracy rates for
free recall and the specific questions, the accuracy rates appear much lower for the
specific questions. However, half of the specific questions were yes/no questions and
the rest were forced choice, and the authors do not report error rates separately for the
different types. As we shall see, the yes/no and forced-choice questions are likely to
lead to more errors.
Dent and Stephenson (1979) more systematically compared accuracy for openended and closed-ended wh- questions. The researchers interviewed 40 10 to 11-yearold children both immediately after and one day after they viewed a short film depicting
a theft. Children were either asked one free recall question (“tell me what you...saw in
the film”), ten “general” wh- questions (e.g. “Tell me as much as you can about what the
man in the white mac looked like and what he was wearing”), or 46 “specific” questions,
“many of which required only one word or phrase answers” (p. 43) (e.g. “What colour
hair did the man in the white mac have?”). Consistent with other research, the move to
wh- questions dramatically improved completeness. After a delay of one day, children
asked general questions provided 33% more correct details than children asked for free
recall, and children asked specific questions in turn provided 45% more correct details
than children asked general questions. If one compares free recall to specific
questions, the latter produced almost twice as many correct details. However, moving
to wh- questions reduced accuracy. Whereas children’s free recall was 91% accurate,
their accuracy in response to the general questions was 86%, and 81% in response to
the specific questions.
Wh- questions are particularly likely to lead to greater inaccuracies as they
inquire into peripheral and less salient details. In a study examining 3- to 5-year-olds
memory after a one week delay of a play interaction with an adult, children’s responses
to wh- questions about actions were highly accurate (Peterson et al., 1989), (84%
correct, 5% error) but were much less accurate when asked peripheral questions about,
for example, type of clothing or descriptions of the room. Children correctly answered
only 43% of the wh- questions regarding what each person wore, and erred 29% of the
time, and correctly answered only 14% of the wh- questions regarding the room, and
erred 24% of the time.
Although we are not aware of systematic research exploring the issue, the
increase in errors in response to wh- questions as they move from central to peripheral
details is likely to be most noticeable if the questions about peripheral details are akin to
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multiple choice questions in which the choices can be easily generated by the
respondent. For example, if one asks about the color of a remembered object, even
young children are likely to find it easy to access possible colors from which they can
choose. As we will see, below, forced-choice questions increase the likelihood of error
because of the ease with which respondents can choose an answer.
Several studies have found that asking children to describe what they “saw” and
what they “heard” effectively supplement information they provide in response to a
invitation to “tell everything” (Elischberger & Roebers, 2001; Poole & Lindsay, 1995). In
Poole and Lindsay’s (1995) Mr. Science study, 3- to 7-year-olds interacted with a man
named “Mr Science,” who conducted four demonstrations with each child for a total of
16 minutes. Shortly thereafter, children were asked a free recall question about their
visit (“Tell me everything you can about what happened in the science room so I will
know about them too”), which was followed up with four questions, two simply asking
the child to provide additional information (e.g. “Can you tell me more?”) and two whquestions asking the child to tell the interviewer “how everything looked in the science
room” and “about all of the things” the child “heard in the science room.” Compared to
the free recall question alone, asking the additional questions led to three times as
many details (see also Poole & Lindsay, 2001, 2002).
Poole and Lindsay (1995) found that the requests for “more” information were not
as effective as the questions about what the child saw and heard, and they concluded
that “young children respond poorly to questions that simply ask if they can report
additional information” (p. 139) (see also Poole & Lindsay, 2001). Moreover, Poole &
Lindsay (2001) found a “disturbing 20% rate of spontaneous intrusion errors” among the
3- to 4-year-olds when they were asked a final question asking for more information;
some children apparently failed to infer that the interviewer was specifically asking for
more about their visit to Mr. Science.
These difficulties raise a general point about analog research on the productivity
of children’s recall. The research reviewed in this section finding that wh- questions
supplement free recall did not assess the potential for cued invitations to supplement
children’s reports. As the reader will recall, these are questions that repeat content
mentioned by the child and ask for elaboration (with “tell me more” and “what happened
next”). Indeed, other analog studies assessing the productivity of children’s free recall
typically fail to ask any followups to requests for free recall (e.g., Goodman et al., 1991;
Quas & Schaaf, 2002) or rely on non-specific follow-ups such as “tell me what else
happened” (e.g., Kulkofsky, Wang, & Ceci, 2008; Melnyk & Bruck, 2004; Principe &
Ceci, 2002; Salmon & Pipe, 2000).
Future work can help determine if improved interviewing, including greater
reliance on cued invitations, reduces the need for more direct questions (such as whquestions about peripheral details). Brown and colleagues (2013) found that 5- to 7year-olds’ responses to wh- questions were almost as accurate as their responses to
invitations and cued invitations. Only a small percentage of the questions asked
children about details that they had not previously mentioned. Furthermore, children
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were questioned using the NICHD protocol, which meant that the interviews contained
ground rules, rapport-building, and narrative-practice before questioning children about
the event.
Field studies have confirmed that wh- questions (directives) may be helpful in
eliciting information that children otherwise would fail to mention in forensic interviews.
For example, children’s narratives about abuse often exclude information about their
emotional reactions (Lamb et al., 1997; Westcott & Kynan, 2006 [cites in Lyon et al,
2012]). When questioned specifically about their reactions, children are likely to be
asked closed-ended questions, such as, “did it hurt?” By contrast, asking children, “how
did you feel?” focuses their attention on their reactions without suggesting information
(Lyon et al. 2012). Similarly, children may need to be asked wh-questions in order to
elicit information about sexual abuse disclosure, because they often fail to
spontaneously describe disclosure when questioned about abuse (Malloy, other studies
with Lamb).
Field research has consistently found that whereas wh- questions (directives)
elicit less information per prompt than invitations and cued invitations, they are more
productive than option-posing questions, which are discussed in the next section.
Directives are most likely to be necessary when questioning the youngest witnesses.
Hershkowitz and colleagues (2012) found that 3- and 4-year-olds were more
consistently responsive to directive questions than to invitations and cued invitations.
Therefore, directives may be necessary in order to elicit complete reports from the
youngest witnesses.
2d. Option-posing questions: yes/no and forced-choice
“Option-posing” questions are closed-ended questions that refocus the child’s
attention on details of the allegation that they have not previously mentioned without
implying an expected response. They can be formulated as “yes/no” or “forced-choice”
(sometimes called “multiple choice”) questions. Children’s answers to option-posing
questions tend to be less accurate than their responses to directives, cued-invitations,
and invitations.
The use of yes/no questions has been most thoroughly explored by Ornstein and
his colleagues, who have conducted a number of studies examining children’s memory
for pediatric examinations (Baker-Ward, Gordon, Ornstein, Larus, & Clubb, 1993;
Gordon, Ornstein, Clubb, Nida, & Baker-Ward, 1991; Greenhoot, et al. 1999; Ornstein,
Gordon, & Larus, 1992; Ornstein et al., 2006). The research consistently found that
supplementing open-ended questions with yes/no questions increased the
completeness of children’s reports, particularly among preschool children. For
example, Ornstein, Gordon, & Larus (1992) interviewed 3- and 6-year-olds about a 45minute physical examination immediately after the exam and again either one week or
three weeks later. Children were first asked “Tell me what happened during your check
up” and “Tell me what the doctor did to you.” They were then asked increasingly
specific yes-no questions regarding aspects of the exam they failed to mention in
White Paper on Interviewing (Part 1) DRAFT p. 14
response to less specific questions. Ornstein and his colleagues found that only a small
proportion of children’s accurate recall was in response to the open-ended questions,
and that “it was necessary to rely more fully on yes-no, specific probes when dealing
with the 3-year-olds, because these children generated relatively little information in
response to the open-ended questions” (p. 58). Specifically, one-fourth to one-third of
the 3-year-olds correct recall was in response to open-ended questions, compared to
almost one half of the 6-year-olds’ recall. In other words, asking specific questions
more than tripled the amount of details the 3-year-olds could recall, and more than
doubled the 6-year-olds’ production. Similar results were reported by Baker-Ward,
Gordon, Ornstein, Larus, and Clubb (1993), who conducted interviews with 3- to 7-yearolds up to six weeks after their examinations, and Gordon, Ornstein, Clubb, Nida, and
Baker-Ward, who interviewed 3- to 7-year-olds up to twelve weeks post-examination.
However, there are several problems with option-posing questions. First, in
adult/child conversations, if a question can be answered with an unelaborated yes or
no, then a child is very likely to do so (Stolzenberg & Lyon 2014). As a result, optionposing questions consistently elicit fewer details per question than directive questions or
invitations (Lamb et al., 2008).
A second problem with option-posing questions is that children are unlikely to
answer “I don’t know” (e.g., Memon & Vartoukian, 1996; Poole & Lindsay 2001; Rudy
and Goodman, 1991). It is easier to guess in response to a closed-ended question than
an open-ended question, because the open-ended question requires the respondent to
generate a responsive answer, whereas closed-ended questions can simply be
answered “yes” or “no,” or the child can simply choose one of the proffered responses.
This means that even when accuracy rates for wh- questions and option-posing
questions are equal, error rates are likely higher for option-posing questions. For
example, imagine an interviewer asks one group of children “who gave you your shot”
and another “did the doctor or the nurse give you your shot?” Children who answer “I
don’t know” to the “who” question will not be accurate, but will not be inaccurate either.
But children who choose one of the forced choices will either be accurate or inaccurate.
A third problem with option-posing questions is that in order to keep the interview
progressing, the questioner must generate additional content on his or her own. In turn,
if the questioner is generating all the content, then the narrative that emerges reflect the
questioner’s perspective more than the child’s perspective. For example, if one is asking
a child about sexual abuse and asking predominantly yes/no questions, then one will
ask about aspects of an abusive event with which one is familiar. If something unusual
occurred, it is unlikely to be discovered. Moreover, the child’s perspective is likely to be
overlooked. Importantly, this limitation is independent of concerns that option-posing
questions are suggestive. Even if children are answering option-posing questions
accurately, the kind of information the interviewer can elicit is limited to information the
interviewer generates as possible.
A fourth problem with option-posing questions also stems from the fact that the
interviewer is doing all the talking. If most of the words are the interviewer’s, then this
White Paper on Interviewing (Part 1) DRAFT p. 15
maximizes the likelihood that the child’s limited language abilities will undermine the
reliability of the child’s report. Furthermore, because children usually respond to closed
ended questions by either answering yes or no or by choosing one of the proffered
choices, incomprehension will be more difficult to spot. When the child generates an
answer in response to an open-ended question, the response can provide clues to
incomprehension.
The final problem is that children may exhibit response biases: a tendency to
respond to certain types of questions in a particular way, regardless of the truth. For
example, with respect to yes/no questions, one could exhibit a yes bias, a tendency to
always say yes, or a no bias, a tendency to always say no. With respect to forcedchoice questions, one could exhibit a tendency to always choose the first option or the
last option. Research specifically designed to examine children’s response biases has
used incomprehensible questions (this reduces the likelihood that content will influence
children’s responses). Although two-year-olds exhibit a yes bias, three-year-olds show
no consistent pattern, and by age four, children exhibit a no bias (Fritzley & Lee 2003,
Fritzley et al., 2013).
Among research with varying content, there is no consistent evidence for a yes
bias or no bias among young children. For example, Peterson and Grant (2001) had 3and 4-year-old children play with two confederates (they drew pictures and made
necklaces), and one week later an interviewer asked each child 20 questions about the
actions, appearances, speech, and emotions of the confederates. The authors
systematically varied whether questions with the same content were correctly answered
yes or no. Children were more accurate when responding to yes/no questions when the
correct answer was yes. This is consistent with a yes-bias (See also Peterson et al.,
1999). Peterson and Biggs (1997) questioned 2- to 13-year-olds a few days after an
emergency room visit using free recall, wh- questions, and yes/no questions. In this
study, 3- to 4-year-olds yes responses were more accurate than their no responses; in
other words, they were more accurate when the correct answer was no. This is
consistent with a no bias. Other research has found no systematic bias (Brady et al.,
1999; Greenhoot et al., 1999).
It is likely that the content of the questions influences bias. Young children
appear to be particularly likely to exhibit a no bias when they are asked about
unpleasant content. That is, they learn to “just say no.” Children begin to lie by two
years of age, and their first lies predominantly involve denials of transgressions (Talwar
& Crossman 2012). In the lab, children’s tendency to lie about committing minor
transgressions quickly increases from two to four years of age (Evans & Lee 2013,
Talwar et al. 2002). Children are also willing to lie to cover for others’ transgressions
(Talwar et al. 2004) and those in which they are jointly implicated (Lyon et al. 2008).
More generally, children are most adept at telling falsehoods when they can answer
with reference to their desires rather than reality (Ahern et al. 2011). If asked a yes/no
question about negatively charged content, children can readily give a no response.
Relatedly, children exhibit a positivity bias, which reflects their assumption that they and
other people are good (Boseovski 2010). If young children recognize that questions
White Paper on Interviewing (Part 1) DRAFT p. 16
reference something negative and imply misbehavior they will be biased to answer no.
In field research, it has been documented that whereas asking children who have
previously disclosed sexual abuse “tell me why you are here” is a very effective method
of eliciting disclosures, but children are much less likely to disclose if the question is
rephrased as a yes/no question: Do you know why you are here? (Hughes-Scholes &
Powell, 2012). Again, they simply answer no.
Children may infer that questions about their behavior are accusatory and thus
exhibit a bias to answer no. Lyon and his colleagues (2008) engaged 4- to 7-year-old
maltreated children in play with a confederate, and then immediately questioned
children about their interactions. In one condition, children had played with a large Lego
house with the confederate, and had been given no indication that their play was
prohibited. Nevertheless, when asked yes/no questions about whether they and the
confederate had played with the toy, 4- to 5-year-olds denied doing so 45% of the time,
and 6- to 7-year-olds did so 68% of the time.
Children are probably more likely to exhibit a yes bias if the questions ask about
details that are plausible given children’s experience. (Similarly, researchers have found
that children are more vulnerable to suggestive interviewing about events they find
plausible. (Pezdek & Hodge, 1999).) In Ornstein and colleagues’ research examining
children’s memory for medical examinations, they asked yes/no questions with different
types of content. “Absent feature” questions concern “aspects of routine physical
examinations that happened not to be included in particular checkups” (Ornstein et al.,
1995, p. 357). Children’s error rates were often quite high on these questions. Threeyear-olds incorrectly responded yes as much as 50% of the time, older children [specify
ages] as much as one-third of the time (Baker-Ward, Gordon, Ornstein, Larus, & Clubb,
1993; Ornstein, Gordon, & Larus, 1992; Ornstein, Baker-Ward, Myers, Principe, &
Gordon, 1995). Children thus seem to be vulnerable to confusing what happened in a
particular examination with what happens in examinations generally.
A different sort of yes/no question assessed by Ornstein and his colleagues is an
“extra-event” question, which inquires about “activities that were never included in an
examination. These questions referenced activities that a child might experience in
contact with another professional (e.g. “Did the doctor cut your hair?”) as well as those
that would be unlikely to occur in any professional context (e.g. “Did the nurse sit on top
of you?”) (Ornstein, Baker-Ward, Myers, Principe, & Gordon, 1995, p. 352). Ornstein
and his colleagues characterized the children’s accuracy on the extra-event questions
as “uniformly impressive,” noting that “the children’s performance with these extra-event
questions did not deteriorate over the 12-week delay interval” (Ornstein et al., 1995, p.
356). Three to four year olds incorrectly answered yes about 20% of the time; whereas
6-7 year olds did so no more than 7% (see also Rocha, Marche, & Briere, 2013, finding
a lower rate of false “yes” responding to yes-no questions about a dental visit among 4to 12-year-olds when “the detail probed is not related to a dental visit” (p. 3)).
It is important not to confuse children’s responses to the “absent feature”
questions with their responses to the “extra-event” questions. Part of the confusion may
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be attributable to the fact that, as Baker-Ward, Ornstein, and Principe (1997) explained,
“[b]ecause these questions were rejected so readily….in recent studies we have chosen
more plausible (frequently medical related) actions as distractors” (p. 96). For example,
Greenhoot, Ornstein, Gordon, and Baker-Ward (1999) designed “extra-event” questions
to be “medically related” (e.g., “Did the nurse take your temperature”; “Did the nurse ask
you to lift something to see how strong you are?”)(p. 367). Children’s performance did
in fact perform poorly: 3-year-olds interviewed one week and six weeks after physical
examinations performed at chance levels on yes/no questions about “nonadministered
features,” which included both “extra-event” and “absent” features.
The reader may have noticed that the youngest children’s yes/no performance,
typically the 3 and 4 year olds, is sometimes quite poor, even when asked questions
about implausible details. A number of studies have similarly found large age
differences during the preschool years in children’s tendency to err in response to
yes/no questions. These studies included more suggestive methods and are therefore
discussed in more detail later; for now it is useful to examine children’s performance in
response to yes/no questions alone. Three and four year olds’ participated in four
science demonstrations with Mr. Science in Poole and Lindsay (1995). Three months
later they erroneously responded “yes” 62% of the time to demonstrations that had
never occurred. In a similar study with 3- 8-year-olds, Poole and Lindsay (2001)
interviewed children at 3 months and 4 months. Whereas the 3- to 4-year-olds erred
21% to 24% of the time in response to yes/no questions about non-occurring events, by
5 years of age no more than 5% of the children did so. Garven, Wood, Malpass, and
Shaw (1998) questioned 3- to 6-year-old children one week after a 20-minute classroom
visit by “Manny Morales.” Whereas the 3-year-olds answered 31% of the yes/no
questions about fictitious events incorrectly, no more than 8% of the 5- and 6-year-olds
did so. In a similar study with 5 to 7 year olds, Garven, Wood, and Malpass (2000)
found that children were over 90% accurate in rejecting fictitious events.
As yes/no questions move closer to those that might be designed to elicit abuse
disclosures, 3- and 4-year-old children appear less inclined to respond yes. Goodman,
Hepps, and Reed (1986) assessed 3- to 7-year-olds’ memory for a medical clinic visit
during which they either had blood drawn or a sticker place on their arm after a 3- to 4day delay. Although there were clear age differences in performance, children were
100% correct in answering no to “Did the person hit you?" and "Did the person put
anything in your mouth?” (see also Goodman et al., 1987 [in Ceci book, Children’s
Eyewitness Memory *check p. 17]). Lepore & Sesco (1994) questioned 4- to 6-yearolds about a five minute play session with a TA, immediately after the session and one
week later. Children were 80% accurate in responding to yes/no questions about the
TA’s behavior, and were near 100% accurate both immediately after the interaction and
one week later when asked three yes/no questions that might lead to suspicions of
abuse: “Did the TA take off some of your clothes”, ”Did the TA kiss you?” and “Did the
TA ever touch other kids at the school?”
As one increases the difficulty of the memory task, such as by increasing delay,
developmental differences among preschool children re-emerge, even when asked
White Paper on Interviewing (Part 1) DRAFT p. 18
questions that might raise concerns about abuse. Goodman, Bottoms, SchwartzKenney, & Rudy (1991) questioned 3- 4-year- olds and 5- 7-year-olds about an
inoculation after 2 weeks or 4 weeks. When asked “did she put anything in your
mouth,” 3- to 4-year-olds erred up to 20% of the time, compared to 4% among 5- to 7year-olds. When asked “did she touch you anywhere other than your arm or leg,” 3- to
4-year-olds erred up to10% of the time, the 5- to 7-year-olds only 4%.
In sum, children are likely to exhibit a yes bias to yes/no questions about
plausible and positive events, and a no bias to implausible and negative events. In
other words, interviewers must worry about errors of both commission and omission
when utilizing yes/no questions. Yes/no questions appear to be most dangerous with
younger preschool children. This is ironic, because these are the children that are most
likely to tempt interviewers to ask yes/no questions in order to fill in gaps in their
narratives.
There has been less research on other types of option-posing questions—
those in which the child is asked to choose among explicit options, rather than to
choose among implicit (yes or no) responses. These tend to be referred to as “forcedchoice” or “multiple-choice” questions. As with yes-no questions, forced-choice
questions are unlikely to elicit don’t know responses, because of the ease with which
children can choose one of the options. As a result, they are likely to be particularly
error-prone if neither of the options is correct. Furthermore, children may exhibit
response biases to forced-choice questions, such as preferring the last option, known
as a recency bias. Recency bias is a well-recognized phenomenon. In the survey
literature, adult respondents often exhibit a bias to choose the last option, perhaps
because it is easiest to retain in working memory (Schuman & Presser, 1981).
Furthermore, research on children’s conservation abilities identified a recency bias
among young preschoolers (Siegel & Goldstein, 1969).
The few studies we have identified that assess accuracy in response to forcedchoice questions can be summarized readily. In Peterson and Grant (2001) 3- and 4year-olds played with an experimenter and were questioned about their interaction a
week later. In response to forced-choice questions, they did not exhibit any recency
bias, which would be reflected by lower accuracy when the correct option was the first
mentioned choice. They did, however, err on the forced-choice questions when neither
choice was correct, choosing one option more than half the time. In Rocha, Marche, &
Briere (2013) 4- to 12-year-old children were interviewed 1 day and 6 to 8 weeks after a
visit to the dentist. The mean scores suggested that the youngest children exhibited a
recency bias after the short delay, and all children did so after the long delay, but these
differences were apparently not statistically significant. As in Peterson and Grant,
however, children erred at a high rate (58%) when neither choice was correct. At the
delayed interview even the 10- to 12-year-olds chose one of the incorrect options 60%
of the time. In Mehrani and Peterson (in press), 3- to 5-year-old children were asked
forced-choice questions about an animated video clip. Children exhibited a recency
bias, and the bias was strongest among the youngest preschoolers. (The authors
warned, however, that because the children were Iranian, and questioned in Farsi, that
White Paper on Interviewing (Part 1) DRAFT p. 19
the different intonational patterns for forced-choice questions in that language might
have affected the results.)
Forced-choice questions are clearly problematic when neither choice is correct.
Although it has not been manipulated, plausibility likely affects the results. Across the
three studies, the forced-choice options were plausible; indeed, Peterson and Grant
(2001) found that children exhibited a yes bias when the same questions were phrased
as yes/no questions. With respect to a recency bias, both Peterson and Grant (2001)
and Mehrani and Peterson (in press) speculate that an event in which the child
participates might be most memorable, and this would help to explain the discrepant
results of those two studies. Therefore it seems fair to conclude that younger children
and children with poorer memories of the to-be-remembered event are most likely to
exhibit a recency bias.
Field research has quantified the frequency of option-posing questions in forensic
interviews and in court. Yes-no questions are ubiquitous in normal conversations
(Stivers 2010). It is probably for this reason that unless interviewers are specially
trained, they are likely to rely heavily on yes/no questions when interviewing children.
Descriptive studies of the interviewers conducted by interviewers who have not been
trained to follow the NICHD Protocol show that between a quarter and a third of the
questions asked are option-posing (REFS). They are also the most common sort of
question prosecutors ask child witnesses in court (Andrews, Lamb, & Lyon, in press;
Lyon, Scurich, Choi, Handmaker & Blank, 2012, Stolzenberg & Lyon 2014).
Option-posing questions tend to elicit very brief responses. This leads to a
number of difficulties with interpreting information elicited through this type of question.
Although young children do not appear to exhibit clear response biases to option-posing
questions, they are likely to respond in light of their pre-existing beliefs and preferences,
rather than their memory, particularly when their memory is weak. Because they are
both less productive and more likely to elicit errors than directives, cued invitations, and
invitations, option-posing questions should be disfavored by interviewers. They should
be used only after other prompts have failed to elicit essential information.
2e. Suggestive questions: Tag, negative-term, and presumptive
The NICHD scheme classifies questions as suggestive when they communicate
the expected response, introduce information not mentioned by the child but assumed
by the questioner, or query the truthfulness of the child’s response. Suggestive
questions include questions that are suggestive because of their form (tag questions,
negative term questions) or because they presuppose information. If they presuppose
information, they can be in any form (for example, “Tell me what happened in the
bathroom” is suggestive if the child hadn’t mentioned the bathroom). We will refer to
questions that presuppose information as “presumptive.”
Tag questions and negative term questions are yes/no questions that more
clearly communicate the expectations of the questioner. “Tag” questions are yes-no
White Paper on Interviewing (Part 1) DRAFT p. 20
questions in which the question is expressed as a statement followed by a phrase akin
to “isn’t that true?” (E.g. “He was wearing green shoes, wasn’t he?”). In a negative-term
question, a “not” is inserted. For example, “Did you see a gun?” becomes a negativeterm question if one asks “Didn’t you see a gun?”
Analog studies have shown that tag questions increase acquiescence among
younger children. Greenstock and Pipe (1996) engaged 5- to 7-year-olds and 8- to 10year-olds in twenty minutes of various activities concerning the functions of the human
body (e.g. listening to breathing through a stethoscope), and three days later
interviewed children with yes/no questions (e.g. “Did the lady touch you on the ear?”),
and tag questions (“The lady touched you on the ear, didn’t she?”). Whereas the older
children’s performance on the yes/no questions and tag questions did not differ, the
younger children performed far worse on the tag questions. A similar pattern of results
was observed in a study by Cassel, Roebers, and Bjorklund (1996), who showed
children and adults a one minute film and one week later asked either wh- questions
(e.g. “Can you tell me who owned the bike?’) or tag questions (e.g. “The mother owned
the bike, didn’t she?”). Although kindergartners tended to err more often responding to
the tag questions than the wh- questions, the second graders and the fourth graders
performed responded equally accurately to both types of questions. The adults
appeared to err less often responding to the tag questions than the wh- questions,
perhaps recognizing and consciously resisting the interviewers’ lead. (See also
Krackow & Lynn, 2003; Melinder, Endestad, & Magnussen, 2006 [check for more
details]).Some early work with children found that negative term questions increase
error. Lipman and Wendriner (1906, cited in Bruck, Ceci, & Hembrooke, 1998) found
that 4- to 6-year-old children more often falsely assented to negative-term yes-no
questions (“Isn’t there a cabinet in the room”) than yes-no questions without a negative
term (“Is there a cabinet in the room?”). However, a more recent report by Dale,
Loftus, and Rathbun (1978), testing 4- and 5-year-olds’ immediate memory for a series
of one minute films, failed to find that negative term questions had consistently negative
effects. (“Didn’t you see some…” elicited more false reports than “did you see some,”
but “didn’t you see the…” elicited fewer false reports than “did you see the…”)
Presumptive questions presume or presuppose information. They are classified
as suggestive in the NICHD coding scheme. Whether they undermine accuracy likely
depends on the specificity of the information they presuppose, and the extent to which
the question allows for the presupposition to be rejected. For example, “What else
happened?” presumes that something else happened, but does not suggest those
details, and asks for free recall. Moreover, the respondent can easily reject the
presupposition by responding “nothing.” “When Sam Stone ripped the book, was he
happy or mad?” presumes that Sam Stone ripped the book, and contains a forcedchoice question (Leichtman & Ceci, 1995). In order to reject the presupposition, the
respondent must resist the proffered choices, and explicitly contradict the question (e.g.,
“Sam Stone didn’t rip the book”). Lipman and Wendriner (1906, reported in Bruck, Ceci,
& Hembrooke, 1998) found high rates of acquiescence in response to presumptive
yes/no questions (“Is the door open in the cabinet in the room?” when the assumed fact
was that there was a cabinet in the room). Binet (reported in Whipple, 1915) found that
White Paper on Interviewing (Part 1) DRAFT p. 21
presumptive wh- questions in which the suggested detail was assumed (“What was the
color of the thread that attached the button to the board?”) led to the largest number of
false affirmations among children.
Surprisingly little recent research has examined the relative suggestiveness of
different types of presumptive questions. Brown et al. (2013) examined 5- to 7-yearolds’ responses to non-scripted suggestive questions asked by interviewers trained to
use the NICHD protocol. Thirteen percent of their questions were suggestive, and
remarkably, they “elicited more accurate information than cued invitations” (p. 375).
Because the interviewers managed to avoid asking any option-posing questions, their
suggestive questions likely asked for free recall, and as such, facilitated rejection of the
presupposed information. In contrast, Lyon et al. (2008) questioned 4- to 9-year-old
maltreated children immediately after a brief play session with a confederate. When
asked yes/no questions, children were predisposed to deny falsely that they had played
with a Lego house, and children who had not played with the house were not inclined to
respond yes falsely. However, when the interviewer insisted that the child had done so,
and asked presumptive forced-choice questions (“When you opened the doors [on the
house], were you happy or mad?”), children who had in fact played with the house
acquiesced from 95-98% of the time (depending on their age), and children who had not
played with the house false alarmed 54-76% of the time (again depending on their age).
Presumptive option-posing questions are often used in research that examines the
effects of combining various forms of suggestion on children’s subsequent reports
(reviewed below).
In the field, interviewers often resort to suggestive prompts, particularly when the
interviewees are very young (e.g., Cederborg et al., 2007; Cederborg, Orbach,
Sternberg, & Lamb, 2000; Davies, Westcott, & Horan, 2000; Kask, 2011; Lamb et al.,
2003; Luther, Snook, Barron, & Lamb, 2014; Orbach et al., 2000; Righarts, O’Neill, &
Zajac, 2013; Sternberg et al., 2001; Walker and Hunt, 1998). In child sexual abuse
prosecutions, 16% of prosecutors’ questions and 42% of defense attorneys’ questions
are suggestive (Andrews, Lamb, & Lyon, in press). Tag and negative term-questions
are asked from 6-12% of the time, with defense attorneys asking a higher percentage of
such questions than prosecutors (Lyon, et al., 2012; Stolzenberg & Lyon, 2014.
(Another 13% of questions in court are “declarative,” or statements asked as questions
(e.g., “he left the room?”) (Stolzenberg & Lyon, 2014). The suggestiveness of these
questions is understudied (Klemfuss, Quas, & Lyon, 2014).) The higher percentage of
suggestive questions among defense attorneys is not surprising, since cross-examiners
are allowed to ask leading questions as a matter of course (Federal Rules of Evidence
611).
In contrast, field studies in four different countries (Cyr & Lamb, 2009; Lamb,
Orbach, et al., 2009; Orbach et al., 2000; Sternberg, Lamb, Orbach, Esplin, & Mitchell,
2001) have found that when forensic investigators are trained to follow the structured
NICHD Protocol, they use at least three times more open-ended and approximately half
as many option-posing and suggestive prompts as they do when exploring comparable
incidents, involving children of the same age, without the Protocol. In each study, about
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half of the informative and forensically relevant details were provided in response to
free-recall prompts.
In sum, interviewers should avoid asking suggestive questions, particularly when
they are suggestive in form (such as tag questions) and when they combine
presuppositions with option-posing questions or wh- questions about peripheral details.
Much more analog work should be done to explore the extent to which presuppositions
combined with different question-types undermine the accuracy of children’s reports,
and field research has only begun to examine the different types of suggestive
questions that are being asked in forensic interviews and in court.
3. Repetition
In order to understand the likelihood that a child’s responses in a field interview
are in error, it is important to supplement an understanding of the effects of various
question types on children’s accuracy with consideration of the effects of repeating
those questions, both within and across interviews.
3a. Repeated questions
Child forensic interviewers may often repeat questions to make their requests
clear, to clarify details previously mentioned by the children (e.g., ambiguous or unclear
responses), or to encourage children who are anxious or reluctant to disclose (La Rooy
& Lamb, 2011). More prosaically, they may repeat questions because of their
forgetfulness whether specific topics were covered, or how children had responded.
Repeating questions may be suggestive both because the children may interpret
repetition as implicit assertions that their first answers were unacceptable or incorrect
and because interviewers may in fact repeat questions until they receive the response
they desire. Children may change their responses to repeated questions even if they do
not interpret the repetition as suggestive; for example, if they are guessing, then a
changed response may simply reflect random responding. Indeed, younger children
may not recall their first response, and thus may be inconsistent without being aware of
it.
The finding that young children may change their answers when questions are
repeated is reminiscent of a series of studies challenging classical findings in
developmental psychology. In Piaget’s (1952) classical work on conservation of
number, experimenters showed children two equal arrays of objects spaced similarly
and asked if one row had more or if they included the same number of objects. The
question might be phrased as a yes/no question (do these rows have the same
number?) or as a forced-choice question (are there the same number in both rows or
does one have more?). The experimenter then spread out one of the rows and
repeated the question. Younger children tended to change their answers, first
responding that the rows were equal, but then responding that the transformed row now
had more objects.
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Piaget’s findings were challenged by researchers who argued that a child in the
conservation experiment might “feel that the second question itself seems to suggest
that a new judgment is in order, with the result that he changes his answer” (Rose &
Blank, 1974, p. 500). Questioning first graders, Rose and Blank (1974) found that if
children were asked the key question only after the transformation occurred, the number
of errors was cut in half. Other researchers both replicated Rose and Blank’s findings
and demonstrated that children’s errors in making other conservation judgments
(whether changing the shape of objects changes their volume, mass, or length) were
similarly reduced when participants were only asked one question (Samuel & Bryant,
1984 [mass, number, and volume]; Siegal, Water, & Dinwiddy, 1988 [number and
length]).
However, consider the context in which repetition occurs in the conservation
experiment. In the conservation tasks, the researcher asks the child a question,
transforms the materials, and then asks the question again. The repetition is coupled
with transformation of the objects. If repeating the question tells a child that her first
answer was incorrect, repetition alone (either before or after transformation) should
have equally deleterious effects. Several researchers have found that this is not the
case. Studying 3- to 4-year-olds, Halford and Boyle (1985) asked two number
conservation questions after manipulating the objects; the experimenter asked the
question, dropped something on the floor, and then repeated the question. The authors
found that “the preschool children seem to have no difficulty maintaining their judgment
when they are requested to repeat it without seeing a transformation” (p. 171).
Whereas children changed their answers about half the time in the standard
experiment, they did so 12.5% of the time when the question was simply repeated.
Studying 6-year-olds, Neilson, Dockerell, and McKecknie (1983) asked two number
conservation questions either before manipulating the objects or afterwards. Whereas
children changed their answers about half the time in the standard experiment, 6% did
so when the question was repeated without the transformation. [check more recent
discussion of effects of repetition; ToM studies, moral development]
The lesson of the reactions to Piaget’s studies is that repetition may lead children
to change responses, but whether it does so is highly dependent on contextual factors.
Repetition alone does not clearly convey to children that their answer is wrong; rather,
something else must occur to suggest that a different answer is appropriate. As Poole
and White note in a review of the literature, “[i]t is safe to assume that repetition effects
will not be uniform but will be dependent on variables that alter witnesses’
interpretations of repeated requests” (1995; p. 37).
The most oft-cited study supporting the detrimental effects of question repetition
was by Poole and White (1991), who interviewed 4-to 8-year-olds and adults. The
participant sat in a room with a female assistant who asked the participant to draw a
picture. The child then observed a one-minute interaction: A man entered the room and
was told by the assistant that no one was allowed in the room during the experiment.
The man explained that he was looking for his pen and grabbed the pen the participant
was holding. The assistant argued with him about the pen “in a joking manner” and
White Paper on Interviewing (Part 1) DRAFT p. 24
held the pen behind her back (p. 977). He wrested the pen from her hand, and she
responded “ouch,” pouted and held her wrist. The man kissed her on the cheek and
then left the room. Children were questioned about the one-minute interaction either
immediately and one week later, or only one week later. They were asked a block of
seven questions three times (so that each question was repeated twice). The questions
were both wh- questions (e.g. “What did he look like?”) and yes/no questions (“Did the
man hurt Melanie” and “Did the man ask nicely for the pen?”).
The authors found that when children were asked wh- prompts a second time,
they provided additional accurate information that was not reported earlier. This may
reflect a general characteristic of memory: successive accounts of the same incident
often contain new information, a phenomenon known as reminiscence (Erdelyi, 1996).
When Poole and White analyzed shifts in responding across repeated yes/no
questions, they found that 4-year-olds were more likely to change their responses than
older subjects. However, they also found that school-age children were remarkably
resistant to the effects of repetition; indeed, 6 year olds performed as well as adults. 4year-olds changed their responses from 8-16% of the time when questions were
repeated, whereas 6-year-olds and older subjects did so only 1-2% of the time.
Similarly, when they questioned the same subjects two years after the event, Poole and
White were “extremely surprised” to find no age differences, “particularly given the fact
that the youngest children were only 4 years old when they witnessed the event” (p.
851). By this time the youngest subjects were six years of age, leading the researchers
to conclude that across the two studies “[s]ubjects 6-years-old or older were able to
obtain good within-session consistency on yes-no questions.” (p.851) Participants
changed their responses to repeated questions about 5% of the time.
The results suggest that repeated questions do not inevitably reduce accuracy,
but that one should consider the kinds of questions being repeated. The youngest
children were frequently inconsistent in response to yes/no questions, but the authors
were careful to note that they had intentionally staged the event so that “whether
Melanie had actually been injured or was simply discouraging John [the man]” and
“whether the interaction was predominately antagonistic” were “ambiguous features” (p.
977). Hence children’s inconsistency could be attributable to uncertainty about the
nature of the interaction. Moreover, one could not conclude from the study that
children’s responses to repeated questions were less likely to be accurate than their
initial responses.
Notably, children were no more likely than adults to view the interaction as
harmful. The researchers found no evidence that “younger subjects were more or less
prone to report that injury had occurred or that inappropriate behavior was witnessed’
(p. 981). Indeed, subjects tended to minimize the extent to which a harmful interaction
occurred. The researchers believed that the question “Did the man ask nicely for the
pen” was unambiguous, “because the assistant inappropriately grabbed the pen from
the subject.” Nevertheless, “many subjects were reluctant to say anything unflattering
about the stranger” (p. 984). The researchers suggest that either subjects were making
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judgments based on the overall actions of the man, or that “there is implicit social
pressure involved in reporting antisocial behavior” (p. 984). This finding is consistent
with a positivity bias, mentioned above, whereby individuals presume that actors are
prosocial.
Several themes from the Poole and White study reappear in other research on
repeated questions. As questions become more specific, and move from open-ended
wh- questions, to specific wh- questions, to option-posing questions, repetition is often
more likely to lead to inconsistent responding, and older children are more likely to
succumb to pressure. Similarly, when other suggestive features are added,
performance naturally deteriorates, and again age effects extend to older children.
Finally, when children’s memory for the to-be-event is weaker (or when they are asked
unanswerable questions), repetition is more likely to lead to inconsistency.
When wh- and option-posing questions are merely repeated, wh- questions often
lead to less inconsistency than yes/no questions, but there is no consistent reduction in
accuracy. Memon and Vartoukian (1996) questioned 5- to 8-year-olds shortly after they
witnessed a 5 minute interaction between two adults. They found that repetition of
repetition of “closed” questions (mostly yes/no) led to a statistically non-significant
decrease in accuracy, but then repetition of “open” questions (wh-) led to a statistically
non-significant increase in accuracy. Moston (1987) questioned 6- to 10-year olds later
in the day after they observed an adult (for approximately one minute) tell them that
they would be questioned later that day by the experimenters. Moston (1987) does not
report the type of questions he asked children, though he noted that they provided a
substantial percentage of don’t know responses (16%), which suggests that the
questions were wh- rather than option-posing. Repetition decreased the number of
correct responses, but did not increase the number of incorrect responses (indeed, the
percentage of inaccuracies were slightly lower). Although Moston (1987) does not
explain the finding, it is consistent with an increased number of “don’t know” responses.
Krähenbühl and her colleagues have conducted several studies in which
questions are repeated without additional pressures. Children from 4 to 9 years of age
observed a 15 minute presentation and one week later were asked repeated questions.
Some of the questions were “answerable,” meaning that they inquired into details that
children had witnessed. Krahenbuhl and Blades (2006) found that accuracies did not
change with repetition of wh- and yes/no questions, whereas Krahenbuhl and Blades
(2009), who only asked wh- questions, found that accuracy decreased the first time
questions were repeated, but then increased with further repetition. The differences
were small, with accuracies ranging from 52-58% across four repetitions. Importantly,
however, when the researchers asked children “unanswerable” questions, to which
children could not know the answer, repetition increased children’s tendency to guess,
and all guesses were classified as inaccurate. We will return to this point when we
consider the importance of memory strength for repetition.
Howie and her collagues have also examined mere repetition. Howie, Sheehan,
Mojarrad, & Wrzesinska (2004) questioned 4- to 7-year-olds about an 8-minute video
White Paper on Interviewing (Part 1) DRAFT p. 26
one week later with wh- questions or option-posing questions (either yes/no questions
which should be answered no or forced-choice questions). The likelihood of accurate
responses did not change with repetition. The likelihood of inaccurate responding only
increased among the younger children (4- to 5-year-olds), who also exhibited a
decreased tendency to answer I don’t know. Howie, Kurukulasuriya, Nash, and Marsh
(2009) questioned 4- to 7-year-olds about a group craft activity one week later. Overall,
accuracies did not decline with repetition. Indeed, the authors were surprised to find
that when “mean change across repetition was found, it was usually in the direction of
improvement rather than deterioration in accuracy, and there was little suggestion of
greater deterioration across repetition in more pressuring question formats” (p. 319).
By “more pressuring question formats,” the authors were referring to yes/no questions
that are correctly answered “no.”
Most of the research analyzing the effects of repeated questions on children’s
reports combines repetition with some type of pressure on children to change their
response. In the Bonn Test of Statement Suggestibility, the interviewer reads the child
a story and then asks a series of yes/no, tag, and forced-choice questions (in which
neither response is correct). Some of the questions are repeated immediately after
they are first asked, and the repeated question is prefaced with a statement like “Are
you sure” or “Listen closely to this question again.” Because the interviewer reads the
story to the child, he or she knows the contents of the story, increasing the
suggestiveness of the questions. Children’s performance when questions are repeated
tends to be quite poor. One study examining children from four to ten years of age
found age differences in children’s tendency to change their responses when the
questions were repeated (Candel, Merckelbach,& Muris, 2000), whereas two studies
found no age differences (Endres, 1997; Endres, Poggenpohl, & Erben, 1999).
Some researchers have made repetition more suggestive still by prefacing the
repeated questions with a warning that the child had made a number of mistakes.
Doing so increases suggestiveness in two ways. First, telling the child she has made
mistakes makes clear that the interviewer is knowledgeable. Second, it explicitly
pressures the child to change her response. Six studies have examined subject’s
susceptibility to repeated questions using a version of Gudjonsson’s Suggestibility
Scales, in which the interviewer reads the subject a story, and then asks 20 questions.
The interviewer then warns the subject that he or she made a number of mistakes, and
then repeats the 20 questions. 15 of the questions are called “suggestive”: they are
either yes/no questions that are correctly answered “no” or forced-choice questions (e.g.
“Did the woman have one or two children?”) for which neither answer was correct. Five
of the questions are yes/no questions that are correctly answered “yes.” Subject’s
tendency to change their responses with repetition of the “suggestive” questions is
called “shift,” and the research has generally found age differences in “shift” extending
from seven years of age to adulthood (Gudjonsson, 1992; Henry & Gudjonsson, 1999;
Richardson, Gudjonsson, & Kelly, 1995; Warren, Hulse-Trotter, & Tubbs, 1991; but see
Danielsdottir, Sigurgeirdottir, Einarsdottir, & Haraldsson, 1993 [no age differences 6-12
year olds]). [Need to add Scullin & Ceci, 2001, and subsequent studies using the Video
White Paper on Interviewing (Part 1) DRAFT p. 27
Suggestibility scale. 3 year olds less inconsistent than 5’s; may not have remembered
first response.]
The better children’s memory of an event, or the more certain they are, the less
likely they are to respond inconsistently to repeated questions. Several of the
aforementioned studies speak to this. The repeated yes/no questions in Poole and
White (1991) concerned a deliberately ambiguous interaction, and the authors
concluded that “[m]ore research is needed to determine whether the repetition of yes-no
questions is generally problematic for preschoolers or whether inconsistencies will be
apparent only for minor details or ambiguous interactions” (p. 984, emphasis added).
As noted above, children are more likely to guess in response to repeated
“unanswerable” questions, which inquire into information the child cannot possibly
remember (Krahlenbuhl & Blades, 2006, 2009). With respect to the research on
children’s conservation abilities, Gelman, Meck and Merkin (1986) found that if they had
4-year-olds count an array 3 times before asking them “We got [child’s number]
counting this way, what do you think we would get counting the other way?” children
were less likely to give a different response than if they only counted the array once.
Many (but not all) of the studies utilizing suggestibility scales to study children’s
responses to repeated questions found that better memory predicted less shifting in
response to repetition (Candel, Merckelbach, & Muris, 2000; Endres, Poggenpohl, &
Erben 1999 (repeating the story had “weak” but positive effect); Henry & Gudjonsson,
1999; Warren, Hulse-Trotter, & Tubbs, 1991; but see Endres, 1997; Scullin & Ceci,
2001). When Lyon and colleagues (2008) repeated yes/no questions about 4- to 9-yearold children’s interactions with a toy immediately after the interaction, repetition had very
little effect, and did not increase false affirmations. The lack of an effect was likely due
to children’s certainty about what actually occurred, and for children who were denying
play falsely, steadfastness in their reluctance to disclose.
Several studies have analyzed repeated questions in the field (Andrews & Lamb,
2014; Krahlenbuhl & Blades, 2010; Larooy & Lamb, 2011; Warren et al., 1996). La
Rooy and Lamb (2011) found that 37 alleged victims of abuse most often repeated
(54%) or elaborated (27%) on their previous responses to repeated questions, and
contradicted their answers only 7% of the time, even though 62% of the questions were
repeated to challenge the children’s previous responses. However, La Rooy and Lamb
(2011) did not distinguish between open- and closed-ended repeated questions and, as
noted above, this is an essential consideration when interpreting inconsistencies in
children’s responses.
In a later, larger field study involving 115 interview transcripts, Andrews and
Lamb (2014) reported that children were asked repeated questions in all but ten of the
interviews, with 4% of the substantive interviewer prompts being repeated on average
and the frequency with which questions were repeated declining as age increased.
Questions were most often repeated using closed-ended prompts (option-posing and
suggestive, 70%) rather than open-ended prompts (invitations and directives, 30%).
Open-ended prompts tended to be used when questions were repeated for purposes of
child and interviewer clarification, whereas closed-ended prompts were more likely to
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challenge children’s previous responses. This form of questioning may place pressure
on children to reconsider and change their previous responses. Indeed, suggestive
repeated questions were significantly more likely to elicit contradictions than any other
type of prompt. Compared to suggestive and invitation prompts, directive prompts were
more likely to elicit elaboration and option-posing prompts were less likely to elicit
elaboration, whereas, compared to invitation and suggestive prompts, option-posing
prompts were more likely to elicit repetition and directive prompts were less likely to
elicit repetition. When children were challenged they were less likely to elaborate than to
repeat or contradict. When children were prompted with closed-ended questions, they
answered inconsistently 13% of the time. These findings suggest that question
repetition may not affect the consistency of children’s responses as much in the field as
in the experimental laboratory, perhaps because the repetition of questions about
emotionally salient events does not have the same effects as question repetition about
less personally significant events.
In sum, repetition of option-posing and suggestive questions appears more likely
to lead to inaccuracies than more open-ended wh- questions. Mere repetition does not
guarantee reductions in accuracy, however, even when option-posing questions are
repeated. Rather, most of the research that documents the negative effects of
repetition adds implicit or explicit disapproval of children’s initial responses. (We return
to this topic when we consider other suggestive influences on children’s reports.)
However, inaccuracy is not the only concern with repetition. Inconsistencies are likely to
undermine children’s credibility, even if they are not in fact proof that children’s reports
are untrue. Moreover, if an interviewer has a strong bias, then he or she may
selectively repeat questions, and continue to repeat until the desired answer is
obtained. On the other hand, if interviewers are able to avoid excessive reliance on
option-posing questions, then they may be more confident that question repetition will
not be detrimental.