The Role of executive function in children\u27s source monitoring with varying retrieval strategies

Previous research on the relationship between executive function and source monitoring in young children has been inconclusive, with studies finding conflicting results about whether working memory and inhibitory control are related to source-monitoring ability. In this study, the role of working memory and inhibitory control in recognition memory and source monitoring with two different retrieval strategies were examined. Children (N = 263) aged 4–8 participated in science activities with two sources. They were later given a recognition and source-monitoring test, and completed measures of working memory and inhibitory control. During the source-monitoring test, half of the participants were asked about sources serially (one after the other) whereas the other half of the children were asked about sources in parallel (considering both sources simultaneously). Results demonstrated that working memory was a predictor of source-monitoring accuracy in both conditions, but inhibitory control was only related to source accuracy in the parallel condition. When age was controlled these relationships were no longer significant, suggesting that a more general cognitive development factor is a stronger predictor of source monitoring than executive function alone. Interestingly, the children aged 4–6 years made more accurate source decisions in the parallel condition than in the serial condition. The older children (aged 7–8) were overall more accurate than the younger children, and their accuracy did not differ as a function of interview condition. Suggestions are provided to guide further research in this area that will clarify the diverse results of previous studies examining whether executive function is a cognitive prerequisite for effective source monitoring

Young Children\u27s Source Monitoring: Exploring the Contexts of Task Difficulty and Repeated Events

This dissertation had two over-arching goals. The first was to study the cognitive mechanisms underlying effective source monitoring by clarifying the role that developing executive function skills play in children’s increasing ability to monitor sources. The second goal was to examine whether a particular interview technique called “source-monitoring training” could help children to recall the sources of their memories more accurately. These two separate lines of research were furthered by the same methodology, and thus, these separate research questions were examined simultaneously within both of the experiments conducted for this dissertation. In the first study, the difficulty of the source-monitoring decisions was manipulated by testing 4- to 8-year-old children’s memories of a lab-based event after a shorter delay (1-2 days) or a longer delay (8-10 days). Within these two conditions, I explored both the relationship of source monitoring to executive function, as well as the effectiveness of the source-monitoring training procedure. The results of this study showed that executive function was related to source monitoring, and mediation models demonstrated how children’s source monitoring improves with age due to developments in working memory, which improve event encoding and therefore, source monitoring. The effects of source-monitoring training were not as clear as expected; the only group to benefit from the training were older children in the shorter delay condition. Interestingly, neither the relationship between executive function and source monitoring nor the effects of source-monitoring training were affected by the difficulty of the task. In the second study, 4- to 8-year-old children’s source monitoring was examined within a repeated-event paradigm. The inclusion of more than two sources (i.e., events) created a more realistic and generalizable task. Again, both the relationship between executive function and source monitoring and the effectiveness of source-monitoring training were examined within the same study. In this study, there was evidence that two broad components of executive function as measured through parent reports were related to source monitoring. The source-monitoring training did not improve source accuracy, but did impact the types of errors children made, such that older children who received the training were more likely to say, “I don’t know” instead of confusing the events. Testing these relationships in a variety of conditions illustrates how cognitive and interview factors are related to source monitoring, demonstrating clear links between executive function and source monitoring, but mixed evidence for the effectiveness of source-monitoring training. Collectively, my doctoral program of research contributes a greater understanding of how source monitoring develops and whether source-monitoring training could be used in practice

Judges\u27 delivery of ground rules to child witnesses in Australian courts

Ground rules directions are given to children in forensic interviews to explain what is expected of them, and to reduce their tendency to acquiesce to erroneous or incomprehensible questions. Ground rules may also be necessary when children provide testimony in court. Drawing on research conducted for the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, the present study examined the use of ground rules directions delivered in court in 52 trials by 24 presiding judges in three jurisdictions to 57 child complainants (aged 7–17.5 years). Eleven categories of rules were identified. The number of words spoken to deliver each rule was counted, and grade-level readability scores were calculated as a proxy for the complexity of the ground rules. When judges asked comprehension or practice questions, the question types were coded. More than one third of the children (35%) received no ground rules directions from the judge; the remaining 65% received directions on an average of 3.5 types of ground rules out of a maximum of 11 types. While comprehension questions were common, practice questions were rare. Comprehension questions were most often presented in a yes/no format that implied the expected response, although this form of question is unlikely to provide an effective assessment of a child's comprehension. Neither the number of rules delivered nor the number of words used was related to children's age. Implications for children's court testimony are discussed.No Full Tex