Talwar Victoria, Lee Kang, Bala Nicholas, Lindsay R C L
McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Law Hum Behav. 2006 Oct;30(5):561-70. doi: 10.1007/s10979-006-9038-8.
This study investigated adults' judgments of the honesty of children's coached true and fabricated mock testimony. Adults saw video clips of children testifying in a mock court about a true or fabricated event in their lives. They were asked to make an assessment of the truthfulness of the testimony, and respond to questions about their perception of children's credibility. Half of the adults saw children testifying after a competence examination, and the other half saw children testifying without a competence examination. Overall, girls were rated as more competent than boys, and their testimony was more likely to be believed. Younger children were more likely to be rated as incompetent than older children. A factor analysis of adults' responses revealed six factors which significantly predicted adults' overall assessment of children's credibility, and their evaluations of children's competence to testify. Adults' detection accuracy was at chance, with the majority of children rated as truthful. Viewing the competency examination and cross-examination did not improve the adults' detection accuracy. However, seeing the cross-examination made adults' less likely to believe children's testimony. The implications of these results for the judicial system are discussed.
本研究调查了成年人对儿童经过指导后的真实和编造的模拟证词诚实度的判断。成年人观看了儿童在模拟法庭上就其生活中的真实或编造事件作证的视频片段。他们被要求评估证词的真实性，并回答有关他们对儿童可信度看法的问题。一半成年人看到儿童在能力测试后作证，另一半成年人看到儿童在没有能力测试的情况下作证。总体而言，女孩被评为比男孩更有能力，她们的证词更有可能被相信。年幼的孩子比年长的孩子更有可能被评为没有能力。对成年人的回答进行的因素分析揭示了六个因素，这些因素显著预测了成年人对儿童可信度的总体评估以及他们对儿童作证能力的评价。成年人的检测准确率处于随机水平，大多数儿童被评为说真话。观看能力测试和交叉询问并没有提高成年人的检测准确率。然而，看到交叉询问使成年人不太可能相信儿童的证词。讨论了这些结果对司法系统的影响。
