Method
Participants
60 male and 60 female participants of varying demographic background, who are
of a jury-eligible age, would be the preferred participants for this study.
Participants would be recruited from Cook County through a voluntary sign-up
session held in Daley Plaza. A 5-year-old, child and interviewer will be selected
via the processes utilized by Warren et al. (2002) to serve as the source for
the testimony types used.
Design
This will be a 3 x 2, between-subjects design with each group of 20 participants
(50:50 sex ratio) only experiencing one condition of the experiment. There will
be an independent variable of testimony that will be manipulated in three levels,
consisting of an actual video of the child's testimony (the complete question/answer
session between the child and the interviewer), a verbatim transcript (word-for-word
script) of the interview held between the child and their interviewer, and finally
a summarized/gist transcript (informative summary) of the child's testimony
in which only salient information is reported (Warren et al., 2002). The other
independent variable to be manipulated in this experiment is whether or not
the participants will be notified that the child's testimony was influenced
by positive reinforcement (Garven et al., 2000), though there will be no actual
difference in the testimonies seen amongst each of the test groups.
Procedure
The transcribed or video interview of the selected child and their interviewer
to be used as the experimental stimulus in this proposed experiment contained
information based on a mock visit that an animal trainer made to the child's
class, in which the trainer presented three different animals to the class.
The three animals present at the visit were a tiger, a python, and a monkey
that the children were allowed to pet and also told information about each animal's
lifestyle, diet, and other miscellaneous facts. There was also an instance during
the trainer's visit, where the monkey became startled and bit the trainer's
arm drawing blood, thus causing the trainer's visit to be cut short. The interviews
with the children were conducted the day following the trainer's visit, in order
to reduce memory loss regarding the visit. Each child was asked 15 questions
concerning the animals the trainer showed to the children, activities the children
engaged in with the animals during the trainer's visit, information they learned
about the animals, and finally their memories of the monkey biting the trainer's
arm and specific details surrounding the incident.
Participants will be randomly assigned into one of the 6 treatment groups, making
sure that there is an equal ratio of 10 men and 10 women in each condition.
The participants who will be used in the "reinforcement informed"
testimony groups will be told prior to either viewing the video or reading the
transcript of the interview that the child was reinforced with positive verbal
and non-verbal gestures (e.g. "that's right, you have an excellent memory"
or smiles and thumbs-up gesture) from their interviewer regarding the "monkey
bite" incident and its' details, although no actual difference in child/interviewer
interaction will occur between treatment groups. Once in their separate groups,
in separate rooms, the participants will be given 45 minutes to either view
or read their version of the interview. After this time, the participants will
be given a 25-item questionnaire that will ask them whether they believed each
animal was actually brought to the child's class, whether they believed the
child actually touched each of the animals, and finally whether or not the trainer
was actually bitten by the monkey. Using a Likert scale ranging from 1-7 (1
= Not "…" At All, 7 = Extremely "…"), the participants
will also be asked to rate the degree of believability and credibility they
would attribute to each type of testimony. Participants will also be asked fill
out a similar Likert scale regarding the level of confidence they would attribute
to each of the specific questions encountered in the interview.
Results
In regards to the effects seen on the various testimony types, I predict that
there will be no significant difference in levels of believability and confidence
rated for the video, verbatim transcript, and summarized transcript versions
of the interviews based on the results found in the previous research (Warren
et al., 2002). But I do predict that the summarized testimony will be determined
to be more credible than either the verbatim testimony or the videotaped testimony.
And amongst the latter two types of testimony, the verbatim testimony will be
seen as more credible than the videotaped version. I believe this result will
be seen due to the fact that past research has shown that people associate concise
recounts of an event as being more accurate and thus would consider it to be
more reliable of a source as opposed to a witness who talks about every insignificant
detail. I also predict that there will be significant differences in perceived
believability, confidence, and credibility concerning whether or not the participants
were informed that the child witness was reinforced during their interview amongst
all of the testimony types (Warren et al, 2002). I predict that there will be
significantly lower scores of believability, credibility, and confidence rated
by participants in the "reinforcement informed" groups than in the
groups who were not informed. I foresee this result based on the fact that several
people are now aware of the impact that coercion has on children either due
to news stories that involved children making false claims of sexual abuse against
parents or teachers solely because they heard about it on television or from
another source as a means of getting attention. So due to this public knowledge,
I believe people would be far less likely to trust the words of a child if they
thought that there was even a possibility that someone else was influencing
their statements. As far as differences in believability, confidence, and credibility
between the testimony types, I predict that all of these dependent variables
will show the lowest scores for the child videotaped testimony, with the next
lowest score seen in the verbatim transcript condition, and finally the gist
condition showing the highest scores of the three "reinforcement informed"
testimony treatments. The reason that I predict the videotaped testimony will
show the lowest scores for the three dependent variables is that I believe seeing
the child will only strengthen participants' mistrust since they can connect
the reinforcement information with a face. And subsequently, I predict that
the verbatim testimony will be have lower scores of the dependent variables
than the gist testimony because the verbatim testimony would most likely remind
the participants more of the interviewer's reinforcement than the more succinct
summary testimony.