Wylie Breanne E, Merriwether Ella P, Olaguez Alma P, Lieber Miriam, Klemfuss J Zoe, Lyon Thomas D, McWilliams Kelly
Gould School of Law, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA.
Department of Psychology, John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, New York, USA.
Child Abuse Rev. 2024 May-Jun;33(3). doi: 10.1002/car.2869. Epub 2024 Apr 23.
The present study examined adults' interpretations of invitations using the word 'time'. Recent research has demonstrated that children may misunderstand these invitations as solely requesting temporal information (Friend et al., 2022). This study tested whether adults perceive the ambiguity in these invitations and whether they understand the source of children's pseudotemporal errors. We examined 401 adult participants' perceptions of invitations using the word 'time', varying the phrasing of the invitation ( vs. ) and whether the participant had exposure to a child's pseudotemporal response. Adults largely interpreted the invitations as requests for what happened during an event, not requests for when an event occurred. They rated the invitations as clear, not difficult and appropriate for elementary-aged children. However, they were more likely to rate invitations as temporal compared to invitations. Additionally, their perceptions of clarity and age appropriateness decreased when they were exposed to children's overtly pseudotemporal responses. These results suggest that although adults typically fail to identify the ambiguity in invitations using the word 'time', they are able to adjust their interpretation of the questions, at least when they are provided clear evidence of children's misinterpretation.
本研究考察了成年人对使用“时间”一词的邀请的理解。最近的研究表明，儿童可能会将这些邀请误解为仅仅是在询问时间信息（Friend等人，2022年）。本研究测试了成年人是否察觉到这些邀请中的歧义，以及他们是否理解儿童伪时间错误的根源。我们考察了401名成年参与者对使用“时间”一词的邀请的理解，改变了邀请的措辞（与……相比）以及参与者是否接触过儿童的伪时间回答。成年人大多将这些邀请理解为对事件期间发生了什么的询问，而不是对事件何时发生的询问。他们认为这些邀请清晰明了，不难理解，且适合小学年龄段的儿童。然而，与……邀请相比，他们更倾向于将……邀请视为与时间有关。此外，当他们接触到儿童明显的伪时间回答时，他们对清晰度和年龄适宜性的评价会降低。这些结果表明，尽管成年人通常无法识别使用“时间”一词的邀请中的歧义，但至少当他们得到儿童误解的明确证据时，他们能够调整对问题的理解。
