1 University of Chester, UK.
2 University of Westminster, UK.
Autism. 2018 Feb;22(2):181-194. doi: 10.1177/1362361316669088. Epub 2016 Nov 14.
The success of witness interviews in the criminal justice system depends on the accuracy of information obtained, which is a function of both amount and quality of information. Attempts to enhance witness retrieval such as mental reinstatement of context have been designed with typically developed adults in mind. In this article, the relative benefits of mental and sketch reinstatement mnemonics are explored with both typically developing children and children with autism. Children watched a crime event video, and their retrieval of event information was examined in free and probed recall phases of a cognitive interview. As expected, typically developing children recalled more correct information of all types than children with autism during free and probed recall phases. Sketching during free recall was more beneficial for both groups in both phases in reducing the amount of incorrect items, but the relative effect of sketching on enhancing retrieval accuracy was greater for children with autism. The results indicate the benefits of choosing retrieval mnemonics that are sensitive to the specific impairments of autistic individuals and suggest that retrieval accuracy during interviews can be enhanced, in some cases to the same level as that of typically developing individuals.
在刑事司法系统中，证人访谈的成功与否取决于所获取信息的准确性，而信息的准确性则是信息量和信息质量的函数。为了增强证人的记忆提取能力，如通过心理情境恢复来增强记忆，人们已经针对正常发展的成年人进行了相关设计。在本文中，我们探讨了心理恢复和草图恢复这两种记忆辅助手段对正常发展的儿童和自闭症儿童的相对益处。研究中，儿童观看了一段犯罪事件视频，然后在认知访谈的自由回忆和探测回忆阶段对他们的事件信息进行了回忆。正如预期的那样，在自由回忆和探测回忆阶段，与自闭症儿童相比，正常发展的儿童回忆出的正确信息更多。在这两个阶段，自由回忆时的草图绘制对于两组儿童来说都更有助于减少错误信息的数量，但对于自闭症儿童来说，草图绘制对提高回忆准确性的相对影响更大。研究结果表明，选择对自闭症个体特定障碍敏感的记忆辅助手段可以带来益处，并且可以在某些情况下提高访谈中的回忆准确性，达到与正常发展个体相同的水平。
