Peterson C, Dowden C, Tobin J
Department of Psychology, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, Canada.
Law Hum Behav. 1999 Oct;23(5):539-55. doi: 10.1023/a:1022396112719.
This study investigated the influence of question format on preschool-aged children's errors, their response accuracy, and their tendency to say "I don't know" when given non-misleading questions in a neutral, unbiased context. Children (3 to 5 years old) participated in a craft-making session that included a staged "accident" with two experimenters differing in gender and appearance; the environment also had several distinctive features. One week later children were interviewed about actions, participants, and environment; questions were yes/no format with the veridical response "yes" ("yes" questions), yes/no format with the veridical response "no" ("no" questions), and specific wh- format questions. Question format substantially influenced children's responses: they were most likely to make errors if asked "no" questions, and were unlikely to answer either yes/no question with "I don't know." In contrast, children spontaneously and frequently said "I don't know" to wh- questions about content they did not recall (environment), but not about content that was well recalled (actions). Implications of question format for reliability of eyewitness testimony by preschoolers are discussed.
本研究调查了问题形式对学龄前儿童错误、回答准确性以及在中立、无偏见情境下被给予非误导性问题时说“我不知道”倾向的影响。3至5岁的儿童参与了一个手工制作环节，其中包括一场由两名性别和外貌不同的实验人员制造的“意外”；环境也有几个显著特征。一周后，对儿童就行为、参与者和环境进行了访谈；问题采用是/否形式，正确回答为“是”（“是”问题），是/否形式且正确回答为“否”（“否”问题），以及特定的特殊疑问句形式。问题形式对儿童的回答有重大影响：如果被问到“否”问题，他们最容易出错，并且不太可能用“我不知道”来回答任何一种是/否问题。相比之下，儿童会自发且频繁地对关于他们未回忆起来的内容（环境）的特殊疑问句回答“我不知道”，但对于回忆清晰的内容（行为）则不会这样回答。文中讨论了问题形式对学龄前儿童目击证人证词可靠性的影响。
