VanMeter Faith, Henderson Hayden, Konovalov Hailey, Karni-Visel Yael, Blasbalg Uri
University of Minnesota.
University of Southern California.
Psychol Crime Law. 2023;29(2):203-221. doi: 10.1080/1068316x.2021.2018438. Epub 2021 Dec 18.
In the United Kingdom, Section 27 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act permits "Achieving Best Evidence" (ABE) forensic interviews to replace the evidence-in-chief in cases involving children. It is therefore imperative that forensic interviewers elicit complete, reliable, and coherent narratives from children. The goal of the current research study was to assess the coherence of forensic interviews and whether the interviewers' emotional or cognitive support was associated with increases in the coherence of these interviews. Children's narrative coherence was examined in 80 transcripts of ABE investigative interviews with 7- to-15-year-olds who disclosed sexual abuse. Narrative coherence was assessed using the Narrative Coherence Coding Scheme, including three dimensions of narrative coherence: chronology, consistency, and theme (Reese et al., 2011). Findings revealed that first elicited events were more likely to be more coherent compared to subsequently elicited events, and child engagement was positively associated with all dimensions of narrative coherence. Interviewer support was positively associated with chronology, script accounts of abuse were associated with decreased consistency and chronology (but not theme), and cognitive support was not associated with any dimension of narrative coherence.
在英国，《青年司法与刑事证据法》第27条允许在涉及儿童的案件中采用“获取最佳证据”（ABE）法医访谈来取代主询问证据。因此，法医访谈人员必须从儿童那里获取完整、可靠且连贯的叙述。当前研究的目的是评估法医访谈的连贯性，以及访谈人员的情感或认知支持是否与这些访谈连贯性的提高相关。研究人员对80份ABE调查访谈记录进行了分析，这些访谈的对象是7至15岁披露遭受性虐待的儿童。使用叙事连贯编码方案评估叙事连贯性，该方案包括叙事连贯性的三个维度：时间顺序、一致性和主题（里斯等人，2011年）。研究结果显示，与随后引出的事件相比，首次引出的事件更有可能具有更高的连贯性，并且儿童的参与度与叙事连贯性的所有维度呈正相关。访谈人员的支持与时间顺序呈正相关，关于虐待的脚本叙述与一致性和时间顺序的降低相关（但与主题无关），并且认知支持与叙事连贯性的任何维度均无关联。
