Suggestibility

Memory and Suggestibility:
Defending your Interview

Allie Phillips
Senior Attorney
APRI's National Child Protection Training Center
Alexandria, VA
703.518.4385

Memory & Suggestibility: Through our interviewing, can we get a child to say or believe something that is not true?

Children are trustworthy, honest, and innocent
Children have poor cognitive ability and are not resistive to suggestion

M&S Research:
The First Wave of Research over 100 studies between 1979-1992

The Second Wave of Research: Research reflects high profile cases with multiple victims. Research is given great weight by some courts.»

Memory and Suggestibility Research:
Does the Surreal World of the Laboratory
Apply to the Real World?

Victor I. Vieth Director,
APRI's National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse
99 Canal Center Plaza Suite 510
Alexandria, Virginia 22314
(703) 739-0321
(703) 549-6259 (fax)
E-mail: victor.vieth@ndaa-apri.org

I. INTRODUCTION: Children have historically been regarded to be highly suggestible and wholly unreliable witnesses

1. For hundreds of years, the statements of children have been viewed suspiciously by adults. In 1692, a group of children accused certain residents of Salem of Witchcraft. These statements contributed to the execution of a number of alleged witches. Several years later, some of the children recanted their previous statements. Following the Salem witchcraft trials, "the prevailing legal attitude for the following 300 years has been one of skepticism about the testimony of child witnesses... (r)epeatedly, legal scholars have cited the excesses of Salem as a basis for their views of child witnesses." Stephen J. Ceci and Maggie Bruck, Suggestibility of the Child Witness: A Historical Review and Synthesis, 113 Psychological Bulletin 403,405 (1993).

2. The failure of society to deem the statements of children as credible is reflected in the charging decisions of prosecutors. As one commentator notes, "legal scholars, eyewitness research psychologists, and clinicians involved with child victims of sexual assault have all suggested that prosecutors are reluctant to bring to court cases that rely primarily on a young child's eyewitness testimony, presumably because of burden-of-proof problems and a suspicion that jurors have negative stereotypes about children's memories. Given the entrenched institutional distrust of children's memory, this reticence is not surprising." S.J. Ceci, D.F. Ross, M.P. Toglia, Eds, Perspectives on Children's Testimony 101 (1989).

3. Sigmund Freud may have fueled the view of children as unreliable. As one commentator notes, Freud's "audacious talk of childhood sexuality, incest, and the need to overcome repression of sexual urges tantalized the public imagination... his... Oedipus Complex— was the stuff of cocktail party chitchat." Patrick Glynn, God: The Evidence 59 (1997).

1. Prior to 1979, there was a shortage of research of children's memory and suggestibility. From 1979-1992, more than 100 M & S studies appeared in the literature. Ceci & Brack, supra, at 408.

2. Much of this literature challenged the earlier view that children are highly suggestible and prone to attack. Gail Goodman is the author of much of the literature that speaks positively of children's abilities. According to Ceci and Bruck, "(p)erhaps no researcher has done more to redress the historical imbalance in favor of child witnesses than Gail Goodman." Ceci & Bruck, supra, at 410.

a. The trailer study. Researchers Rudy & Goodman sent pairs of children ages 4-7 into a trailer. One child was instructed to watch while the other child interacted with a clown. The child interacting with the clown engaged in activities such as being dressed in a clown's suit, being lifted up, and being photographed. The children who interacted with the clown and those who merely observed the interactions were asked a number of leading questions such as "he took your clothes off, didn't he?" These questions produced only one false report of abuse. Specifically, a 4 year old bystander falsely claimed he and the participant were spanked by the clown). L. Rudy & G.S. Goodman, Effects of Participation on Children's Reports: Implications for Children's Testimony, 27 developmental Psychology 527-538 (1991).

b. Medical exam study. Goodman and other researchers studied the memories of 5 and 7 year old girls concerning a medical examination. The children were asked suggestive questions which might trigger a false report (e.g. "How many times did the doctor kiss you?") Not one of the seven year olds made a false report and 5 year olds made a false report only 3 out of 215 times. Ceci, supra at 411 citing Saywitz, Goodman, Nicholas, and Moan, Children's Memories of a Physical Examination Involving Genital Touch: Implications for Reports of Child Sexual Abuse, 59 Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 682-691 (1991).

c. Some scholars believe that the positive outcomes of research by Goodman and others created a false sense of security that children do not lie and are not unduly suggestible. This "pro-child" attitude may regrettably have contributed to abuses in the interviewing of children. Such abuses are exemplified in the case of State v. Michaels, 642 A.2d 1372 (N.J. 1993); also see State v. Michaels, 625 A.2d 489 (1993). The Michaels case involved the alleged sexual abuse of 3-5 year old boys and girls at a day care center. Though a jury convicted Michaels of 131 counts of child abuse, the convictions were eventually overturned. For an overview of the case which is sympathetic to the prosecutor's case, see Lisa Manshel, Nap Time (1990). Without question, many of the children in the Michaels case were interviewed inappropriately. Some of the often-cited egregious interviews include:

1) In one interview, a 4½ year old child was told "lots of other kids" had been spoken to; that the sooner the child cooperated, the sooner the they could get out of there. The child became annoyed, said he didn't want to talk and told the investigator "I hate you." The investigator assured the child he really did not hate the investigator and that, in fact, the child secretly liked the investigator. Eventually, the investigator tried this approach:

I: Come on do you want to help us out? Do you want to help us keep her (Kelly) in jail.

I: I'll let you hear your voice and let you play with the tape recorder. I need your help again, buddy. Come on.

1. Some suggest that not all of the researchers in this field have a great deal of experience with the "real world" of child abuse investigations and prosecutions. As a result, a number of studies have been tailored to the type of child abuse cases that receive national attention from the media. The typical child abuse case profiled by the media involves multiple preschool children who are victimized by someone outside the home. In the case of Kelly Michaels, investigators did use a number of suggestive, perhaps even coercive questions. Moreover, many children were interviewed on multiple occasions even when the children denied the abuse. Michaels, however, is not the typical case and research rooted in the Michaels scenario has less relevance to those of us for whom the sensational is not the norm. See Thomas D. Lyon, False Allegations and False Denials in Child Sexual Abuse, 1 Psychology, Public Policy and Law 429 (1995). — 2. Though much of this research does not reflect the typical abuse investigation, the research has been given great weight by many courts. I am told of a Judge who, in addressing a conference, held up a book and said "this is all you need to know about kids' statements about child abuse." The book was Ceci & Bruck's jeopardy in the courtroom (1995). Although we certainly need to know this research and we have attempted to incorporate many of Dr. Ceci's suggestions into our interviewing courses, the new wave research is only part of, it is not the entire puzzle.

3. Four of the "new wave" studies illustrate the uses and mis-uses of this research.

a. The Sam Stone Study. In this study, researchers made a series of untruthful statements to 3-6 year old children and, eventually, got many of the children to adopt these statements as being true. First, researchers told the children that a fictitious character by the name of Sam Stone really existed and that he was "very clumsy" and "always broke things that did not belong to him." The children were further deceived when "Sam Stone" visited their school for two minutes while the children were engaged in a story telling session. During the visit, "Sam Stone" did not break anything or otherwise behave clumsily. However, the following day, the children were shown a "ripped book and a soiled teddy bear." At this time, few of the children blamed Stone for the damage but 25% surmised he may have been responsible. Over the course of the next ten weeks, the children were interviewed once every two weeks for two minutes. During each session, the children were asked two questions which researchers Ceci and Bruck describe as "leading questions". These questions included "I wonder whether Sam Stone was wearing long pants or short pants when he ripped the book?" or "I wonder if Sam Stone got

the teddy bear dirty on purpose or by accident?" It should be noted, however, that these are not leading questions that merely suggest the desired answer. These questions give the answer and do not allow the children the opportunity to reject the suggestion. In each of these "questions", the child is told that Sam Stone is responsible for the damage and is simply asked to speculate on why he did it or what he may have been wearing when he damaged the property. At the end of the ten week period, the children were interviewed by someone who claimed not to be present the day "Sam Stone" visited the school. When asked, 72% of the 3 and 4 year olds said Sam Stone had ruined at least one of the items and 45% of the 3 and 4 year olds actually claimed to have witnessed the events. Despite weeks of explicit deception, however, only 11% of the 5 and 6 year olds claimed to have actually observed Sam Stone damage the items. According to Ceci & Bruck, "these results indicate that not only do young children form stereotypes but that stereotype formation interacts with suggestive questioning to a greater extent for younger than older children." Ceci & Bruck, psychological bulletin, supra, at 416-417.

b. The mousetrap studies. Children ages 3-6 were interviewed on multiple occasions. The kids were told the interviewer had met with their parents and made up a list of events. Some of the events really happened to the children and some did not. The children were encouraged to try and remember if the events really happened. One of the fictitious events was that the child got his hand caught in a mousetrap and went to the hospital. This process continued once a week for a number of consecutive weeks. By the seventh interview, about one-third of the children eventually claimed to remember experiencing the fictional events they had denied during earlier sessions. During the eleventh session, one child remembered the experience in this way: "My daddy, mommy, and my brother (took me to the hospital) in our van...The hospital gave me a little bandage, and it was right here (pointing to index finger) ...I was looking and then I didn't see what I was doing and it (finger) got in there somehow... The mousetrap was in our house because there's a mouse in our house... The mousetrap is down in the basement, next to the firewood... " Ceci, Loftus, Leichtman, Bruck, The Possible Role of Source Misattributions in the Creation of False Beliefs among Preschoolers, 62 International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis 304,306 (1994).

c. The Mousetrap revisited. Following up on the above research, Ceci and others decided to "change one major parameter of the paradigm.. .instead of merely asking children if they remember experiencing a fictional event, we tell the children that the fictional event actually did happen and ask them to create a visual picture of it in their head and then to tell us if they remember it." Ceci et al, supra at 307. Children ages 3-6 were interviewed 12 times for approximately 30 minutes. Each interview was separated by approximately one week. The children were told they were playing a "game" called "picture in the head". Children were given a list of real and fictional events. The interviewer lied to the children by telling them that all the events really happened to the child. The children were told to "think really hard" about the events and try to "make a picture of it in your head." In the 12^th interview session, the children met with a new interviewer who explained that the prior interviewer "made lots of mistakes" and told many children things that

happened to them which in fact did not. During the initial session, children assented falsely to a fictitious event 29% of the time. By the 12^th session, this figure rose to 43%. Younger children were more suggestible than older children, d. The inoculation study. Four and five year old children received a medical examination by their pediatrician. After the examination, a research assistant greeted the children, spoke to them for several minutes, and then remained while the pediatrician administered an oral vaccine and an inoculation. The RA then took the child to another room and gave them treats and read them a story. Approximately 11 months after the visit, the children were interviewed four times over a two week period. During the first three interviews, the children were told several false things about the earlier visit. The interviewer minimized the amount of pain and how much the child cried during the inoculation. The interviewer falsely told the children it was the RA who gave them the oral vaccine and inoculation and it was the pediatrician who gave them treats and read the story. In the fourth interview, kids were asked to recall everything that happened in the visit. Children were allowed to see pictures of the RA and the pediatrician and were asked to explain what each had done. In the fourth interview, kids receiving the false information reported less hurt and crying than a control group and over 40% falsely reported the duties performed by the RA and the pediatrician. Obviously, a majority of the children resisted at least some of the intentionally false statements of the interviewers and continued to correctly reconstruct the event. Bruck, Ceci, Francoeur, and Barr, "I Hardly Cried when I got my Shot!" Influencing Children's Reports about a Visit to Their Pediatrician, 66 CHILD Development 193-208 (1995).

A. If you interview children in the manner many of the "new wave" researchers do, your interviews are subject to challenge. To avoid this problem, keep in mind the following guidelines:

1. Do not tell children the answer. Note that many of the new wave researchers go well beyond asking direct questions or even leading questions (questions which suggest an answer). As one commentator notes, a "significant feature of the suggestive questions Ceci and others typically use is that they tell rather than ask the child what occurred." Lyon, supra, at 434. In the Sam Stone study, for example, children were "not asked to affirm or deny whether Sam Stone committed the misdeeds but were given a forced-choice question regarding how the acts were performed by Mr. Stone." Lyon, supra, at 434.

2. Do not stereotype the perpetrator. One of the falsehoods told children in the Sam Stone study was that Stone was a clumsy fellow. Investigators should avoid stereotyping alleged perpetrators. Indeed, many children may have positive feelings toward their perpetrator and introducing a negative stereotype may be counter-productive to getting the child to speak candidly with you.

3. Be extra cautious in multi-victim cases. In cases with multiple victims where parents and others may be speaking to the children, "the temptation is great to use

other children's revelations in a coercive manner, either to convince the child that abuse occurred, or to make the child feel disloyal by failing to confirm abuse." Lyon, supra, at 433. Interviewers should avoid suggesting to a child that what other witnesses say must be true.

4. Never refer to any aspect of the interview as a game. Unlike the interviewers in the mousetrap study, investigators should never encourage children to play a game or "picture" stories in their heads. On the contrary, children should be given the message that the interview is serious and truthfulness is important. Interviewers often inappropriately introduce dolls to children by saying "let's pretend this doll is you" or "let's pretend this doll" is the perpetrator. Instead, explain to the child the dolls are not to be played with but are instead used by children to show what they have told interviewers. A possible approach to get the child to make the representational shift is to ask the child "which doll looks most like you" and "which doll looks most like Dad" (or whoever the child has labeled as the perpetrator). Be aware that many young children cannot make this representational shift. For an overview on the proper and improper use of anatomical dolls, see the APSAC guidelines which are included as an appendix to the attached Myers article.

5. The new wave research may reveal particular concerns for therapists. Ceci and his colleagues note that "therapists who treat children suspected of abuse frequently encourage them to engage in fantasy manipulation and self-empowerment activities..." Ceci, Loftus, Leichtman, and Bruck, supra at 317. To the extent therapists utilize the inappropriate interview practices of new wave researchers, these therapists are subject to attack. Ceci and colleagues claim that "many" of the interview transcripts they review contain these suggestive practices. Id. On the other hand, Ceci says that 2/3rds of the transcripts he reviews do not contain the potentially suggestive practices he considers inappropriate. Lyon, supra, at 434.

A. Children, even very young children, can lie. Most parents know this already, but a number of studies confirm it. See Ceci & Bruck, Suggestibility of the Child Witness: A Historical Review and Synthesis, 113 psychological bulletin 403,425-427 (1993).

B. Younger children are more suggestible than older children. In general, once children reach the age of ten, they are no more suggestible than adults. John E.B. Myers, Gail S. Goodman, Karen Saywitz, Psychological Research on Children as Witnesses: Practical Implications for Forensic Interviews and Courtroom Testimony, 27 pacific Law Journal 1,26 (1996).

C. Interviewers should avoid pre-fixed ideas of what happened and should explore alternative hypotheses.

D. Investigators must never put the entire burden of proving a case on the shoulders of the child victim. Investigators must thoroughly investigate each allegation. This means interviewing the suspect and everyone else with knowledge. Every aspect of the child's statement that can be corroborated, must be.

E. Though relevant, the new wave research is less applicable to the majority of interviews of abused children. Consider this:

1. The average age of alleged victims in sexual assault cases is 10 years old, as opposed to the pre-schoolers in the new wave research. Lyon, supra, at 433.

2. Most investigative interviews occur shortly after the report of abuse and do not involve the long delays between the target events and suggestive questions used by new wave researchers. Lyon, supra, at 433.

3. Most real world victims are abused by close family members. Closeness between the victim and the offender increases the child's resistance to falsely reporting abuse. Lyon, supra, at 433.

4. Most real world cases involve one victim, not the multiple victims in cases such as Michaels.

5. Although many abused children are interviewed as many as 11 times, these interviews are of children who have revealed abuse. In contrast, the interviews in the new wave research involve multiple interviews of children who have denied an event. The new wave researchers then repeatedly interview the kids to get them to adopt the intentionally false statement of the interviewer. See Lyon, supra at 434.

6. Although coercive or misleading questioning may result in a false report, it does not necessarily produce a false memory. When researchers "gently challenge" a child's false report, such reports are reduced 50%. Lyon, supra, at 436.

7. Keep in mind that even though most real world interviews involve elements different from the new wave researchers, even the coercive practices employed in this research produced only a minority of false reports.

A. There is general agreement that anatomical dolls cannot be used to diagnose or test for sexual abuse. Myers, supra at 29.

B. The majority of available research supports the position the dolls are not unduly suggestive or overly stimulating. Id. at 30.

C. The dolls are useful to (1) stimulate memory, (2) allow children to demonstrate what they have difficulty putting into words, and (3) confirm that the interviewer correctly understands the child's vocabulary and meaning for various terms. Id.

Suggestibility

Required Reading

Reprinted with permission from:
Reed, D.L. (1996). Findings from research on children's suggestibility and implications for conducting child interviews. Child Maltreatment. 1(2).

Findings From Research on Children's Suggestibility
and Implications for Conducting Child Interviews

L. Dennison Reed, Psy.D.

The primary goal of any investigation of suspicions or allegations of child maltreatment should be to arrive at the "truth" of the matter. Errors in determinations about whether or not a child has been maltreated can have devastating consequences for many, including an abused child who is not believed, protected, and supported; an innocent party whose reputation, relationships, financial security, and personal freedoms are jeopardized; and a nonabused child who is unjustly deprived of the nurturance of a genuinely loving parent or caretaker.

Investigations of child maltreatment cases involving children who have the capacity to communicate verbally generally rely, at least in part, on the suspected victim's statements about the events in question. In cases of suspected sexual abuse, in which medical evidence often is lacking or inconclusive and eyewitnesses rarely exist, the statements of suspected child victims and the manner in which those statements were elicited are of paramount importance in determining what, if anything, occurred.

In recent years, a growing trend in child maltreatment cases, particularly those involving suspected sexual abuse, has been to fault those who perform forensic interviews of children for using improperly leading questioning techniques during such interviews (Myers, 1992). A major thrust of the "attack on the interviewer" incorporates the premise that children are highly suggestible and are therefore easily misled during forensic interviews to affirm or even believe false allegations of abuse that are suggested to them by incompetent and overzealous interviewers.

Critics argue that because children are generally eager to please adults, they are predisposed to say or agree with whatever they think the adult interviewer wishes to hear. Thus, when an interviewer erroneously suggests that a child was abused, the child attempts to please the interviewer by going along with the erroneous information suggested.

Such leading, it is argued, may result from an interviewer's questions, statements, or nonverbal behavior. For example, an interviewer may ask incriminating, misleading questions of nonabused children (e.g., "Mr. Green touched your pee-pee, didn't he?"). Or, an interviewer may make incriminating statements (e.g., "Mr. Green is in jail because he is a very bad man who hurt lots of kids just like you"). Leading may also occur nonverbally, as when an interviewer places unclothed anatomically detailed dolls in provocative sexual positions during the interview or selectively reinforces the child's allegations of abuse (e.g., by nodding affirmatively when the child alleges abuse and ignoring comments by the child that are inconsistent with the suspected abuse).

Forensic interviewers are also faulted for prematurely concluding that abuse occurred and then proceeding to interview children in a fashion that "leads" children to confirm the interviewers' preconceived conclusions. In such instances, interviewers are said to deliberately or unwittingly focus the interview on the presumed abuse while failing to pursue alternative possibilities.

Certainly, improper interviewing and misleading does occur in some cases of suspected child maltreatment. The extent of this problem, however, has not been studied empirically and is currently a matter of speculation. In light of the potentially grave consequences associated with arriving at erroneous conclusions in cases of suspected child maltreatment it is incumbent on all professionals involved in investigation and decision making to be guided by the most reliable information available.

Some criticisms of interview practices appear to be based on empirical research and sound judgment that balances the relative costs and benefits of various interview practices. Other criticisms, however, appear to be quite one-sided and are unsupported or even contradicted by the relevant empirical literature. Understandably, the topic of child maltreatment is emotionally provocative and tends to polarize people, including professionals working in the child maltreatment field (Reed, 1994). This is unfortunate; such polarization, fueled by strong emotions, sometimes results in extreme bias, exaggerated claims, and an atmosphere of antagonism in an area where objectivity, a balanced perspective, and cooperation among professionals are so crucial (Ceci, 1993; Reed, 1994; Saywitz & Goodman, 1996).

This article is intended to familiarize readers with some of the more relevant empirical research on children's suggestibility as it relates to forensic interviewing and to suggest interview practices that take into account the potential for misleading children in cases of suspected child maltreatment. Interview practices grounded in the relevant empirical research generally are more legally defensible than those that are not. Most important, they facilitate the "truth-seeking" purpose of child maltreatment investigations.

What is Suggestibility?

For the purposes of this discussion, suggestibility can be defined as the degree to which one's "memory" and/or "recounting" of an event is influenced by suggested information or misinformation. Thus suggestibility can be manifested by actual changes or*distortions in one's memory that are the product of suggested information/misinformation about an event. Suggestibility effects can also be related to alterations in one's recounting of an event without a corresponding change in one's memory of that event.

For example, if one is exposed to "misleading" information about an event, this misinformation may become incorporated into one's memory as though it were personally experienced or perceived firsthand. Subsequently, when individuals attempt to respond honestly to questions about the suggested event, their responses will be honest but inaccurate to the extent that their memories were contaminated by the suggested misleading information. The process by which one confuses actually experienced events with events that were merely suggested has been referred to as " source misattribution" (Ceci, Loftus, Leichtman, & Bruck, 1994).

In other instances, one might maintain an accurate memory of the event in question yet still agree with suggested misinformation-knowing all the while that it is incorrect. In the latter case, the evidence of suggestibility is found in the person's inaccurate recounting of the event rather than in his or her memory of the event (Ceci, 1993).

Summary of Research Findings Relating to Children's Suggestibility and Susceptibility to Being Misled

Before reviewing the empirical research as it relates to children's suggestibility, two caveats are in order. First, experimental studies regarding children's suggestibility do not precisely mirror real-life situations in which children are interviewed as suspected victims of abuse. Researchers cannot duplicate in the laboratory the same motivational, emotional, social, and traumagenic variables that occur in actual child abuse cases (Saywitz & Moan-Hardie, 1994). Obviously, it would be unethical and inhumane to study children's suggestibility by intentionally attempting to mislead nonabused

children to believe or state that they were abused, just as it would be to attempt to persuade abused children to believe or state that they were not abused. Consequently, research in this area can only approximate real-life situations. The generalizability of the findings from these so-called analog studies of children's suggestibility is limited by the extent to which they differ from real-life situations.

Analog studies with greater "ecological validity" (i.e., those studies that more closely parallel real-life situations) are likely to better guide and inform forensic interview practices. Ultimately, however, even the best experimental research has limited applicability to the dynamic, complex, and delicate process of forensically interviewing suspected child abuse victims. Competent forensic interviewing of children under such circumstances undoubtedly will continue to require sound professional judgment, patience, and sensitivity.

Second, readers are encouraged to bear in mind that the term "misleading," as it applies to child abuse cases, is not a unidimensional phenomenon. Although it is true that, under certain circumstances, some nonabused children can be misled to falsely claim they were abused, it is equally true that abused children can be misled to minimize or to completely deny abuse they have suffered. In fact, the existing literature pertaining to the disclosure process among victims of child sexual abuse indicates clearly that sexually abused children often minimize or deny their abuse and recant their earlier valid allegations of abuse (Lawson & Chaffin, 1993; Russell, 1986; Sauzier, 1989; Sorenson & Snow, 1991; Summit, 1983). Threats, fears, embarrassment, guilt, and shame associated with disclosing one's abuse have been found to be powerful motivators for children to keep their abuse a secret. These same motivational factors can predispose sexually abused children to acquiesce to a forensic interviewer's misleading suggestions that imply a minimized version of their abuse or that they were not abused at all.

Suggestibility Is Not a "Trait" That Remains Constant for an Individual Regardless of the Circumstances

Suggestibility is an extremely complex, multiply determined phenomenon. Situational factors, such as the interview context, the nature of questioning used, and the strength of one's memory of the event in question interact with personality variables to influence the suggestibility of both children and adults (Saywitz & Snyder, 1993). Therefore, the same individual may be highly susceptible to being misled in one situation yet highly resistant to being misled in a different situation.

Preschool-Aged Children Tend to Be More Vulnerable to Suggestion Than Do Either School-Aged Children or Adults

In their review of the literature on children's suggestibility, Ceci and Bruck (1993) found that in 15 of 18 studies comparing preschoolers to older children or adults, preschoolers were the most suggestible group. The youngest preschoolers studied (i.e., 3- and 4-year-olds) appear to acquiesce to false suggestions relating to abuse more often than do older children, at least under the types of situations often studied in child testimony research (Goodman & Aman, 1991). By the time children reach 10 or 11 years of age, they are no more suggestible than adults (Cole & Loftus, 1987).

Although the bulk of the suggestibility research completed to date shows age-related trends in suggestibility, this is not to say that children are invariably more suggestible than adults in all situations. For example, King & Yuille (1987) found that children outperformed adults in resisting misleading questions pertaining to information that was of greater interest and more memorable to children than to adults. Thus situational factors can be more powerful determinants of suggestibility than age.

Also, age-related trends are based on group averages and therefore mask individual differences in suggestibility. Certainly, some preschoolers are less suggestible than other preschoolers, just as some

adults are less suggestible than other adults. Ultimately, it is the interaction among a multiplicity of variables that determines an individual's suggestibility on a particular occasion.

Certain Types of Questions, Suggestions, and Props Are More Likely to Mislead Some Children Under Certain Circumstances

One consistent finding from the research literature is that open-ended questions such as "What happened?" typically elicit the most accurate reports and are least likely to be misleading (e.g., see Dent & Stephenson, 1979). Forensic interviewers frequently are urged to rely on open-ended questions, at least in the initial questioning of the child. One problem with open-ended questions, however, is that they also generate the least information, especially from very young children.

For example, it is not uncommon for a preschooler to answer "nothing" to the question "What happened?" even though the child can demonstrate memory of an incident when asked more specific questions about it. Saywitz and Goodman (1996) note that some young children will even respond "nothing" when asked open-ended questions about significant real-life events that clearly happened (e.g., the child almost died after attempted murder). Thus open ended questions sometimes can result in "errors of omission" or "false negatives' — particularly with preschoolers.

"Commission errors" can also occur in response to open-ended questions for a small number of children. For example, in a study by Goodman and Aman (1991), one boy who had played games with a man later reported, in response to open-ended questions, a wild adventure story he apparently made up of how the man and he had played cowboys and Indians and how he had been tied up.

Errors in "free recall" (i.e., the narrative provided to open-ended questions) can also occur when the "wrong" event (i.e., an event that actually occurred but that is not being inquired about) is described by the child (Saywitz & Goodman, 1996). The wrong event may be one of significance to the child, such as a particularly frightening or unhappy event in the child's life. Thus, although open-ended questions are the most likely to lead to accurate statements, this is not invariably the case.

Recent research also indicates that the free recall of children can be distorted if they were previously subjected to repeatedly misleading comments and/or questions or suggestions that inaccurately stereotype an individual (Clarke-Stewart, Thompson, & Lepore, 1989; Leichtman & Ceci, 1995). In some cases, intensive stereotyping efforts and repeated misleading suggestions have elicited very compelling and elaborated false allegations by preschoolers.

For example, once a week for 4 weeks, Leichtman and Ceci (1995) presented preschool children with a partially inaccurate stereotype of a man they had never met (i.e., repeatedly telling the children stories about how kind but clumsy and inadvertently destructive the man was). The man ("Sam Stone") then came to the children's class for a few minutes, where he was friendly but did not behave in a clumsy or destructive manner. Following Sam Stone's visit, the children were interviewed once a week for 4 weeks. During the first interview, the children were shown a torn page in a book and a stained teddy bear and were asked, "Who ripped the book?" and 'Who got the teddy bear dirty?" If the child responded "I don't know," he or she was encouraged to speculate or guess (e.g., "Who do you think might have ripped the book/gotten the teddy bear dirty?"). During the second interview, the children were again shown the book and the soiled teddy bear and were asked questions containing misleading embedded suggestions (e.g., "Did Sam Stone rip the book with his hands, or did he use scissors?" "When Sam Stone got the teddy bear dirty, did he do it by accident or on purpose?"). The third and fourth interviews involved asking the children questions containing similar embedded suggestions but without the presence of the ripped book and stained teddy bear.

Finally, 10 weeks after Sam Stone's visit, the children received a forensic-type interview from a new interviewer. Initially, they were asked non-suggestive open-ended questions about Sam Stone's visit (e.g., "Remember when Sam Stone came to your classroom? Well, I wasn't there that day, and I'd

like you to tell me everything that happened when he visited. Can you tell me what happened?"). Forty-six percent of the 3- and 4-year-olds and 30% of the 5- and 6-year- olds spontaneously reported in their free narratives that Sam Stone had carried out one or both misdeeds. In response to follow-up probes (e.g., "I heard something about a book/a teddy bear. Do you know anything about that?"), 72% of the 3- and 4-year-olds indicated that Sam Stone did one or both of the misdeeds which were suggested in the earlier interviews. When asked whether they actually saw him do those things, 44% still claimed that they had seen him do those things. Moreover, 21% continued to insist that they saw him do those things even when challenged (e.g., "You didn't really see him do that, did you?"). Among the 5-year-olds, 11% claimed they had actually seen Sam Stone do clumsy things. Several of the children persuasively embellished stories about the man's clumsiness (e.g., claimed the man took a teddy bear into a bathroom and soaked it with hot water before smearing it with crayon). Further, when a group of 119 researchers and clinicians who work in the area of children's testimonial issues were shown videotapes of three of these interviews (including a 3-year-old, a 4-year-old, and a 5-year-old), the majority could not accurately determine which children were reporting actual rather than merely suggested events.

Although the Leichtman and Ceci (1995) study did not involve suggestions or claims of abuse, it does show that if preschoolers are repeatedly subjected to misleading information, especially if this is done in an accusatory context, with encouragement to speculate, false information might intrude into their free recall. Repeated exposure to erroneous stereotypes and suggestions implying that a particular individual is capable of abusing them, or that an individual did abuse them, could lead some preschoolers to falsely allege or affirm that they were abused. Conversely, for preschoolers who actually suffered abuse, exposure to repeated exonerating stereotypes and suggestions that abuse did not occur might result in recantation, even in free recall or in response to open-ended questions (Saywitz & Goodman, 1996).

As is discussed later in this article, the degree to which individuals are misled is related not only to the frequency of exposure to misleading suggestions, but also to the strength of the individual's memory of the event, the "status differential" between the interviewer and interviewee, and the interviewer's demeanor and presumed knowledge about the event in question. Also, it may be that the interviewer's affective tone and the presence of more extreme and one-sided stereotypes than that of "Sam Stone" (who was depicted as both kind and inadvertently destructive) will differentially affect suggestibility. Research remains to be done to assess the impact of these variables on subsequent free recall.

Although open-ended questions sometimes can elicit inaccurate accounts from some children, leading questions have been the primary target of criticism. Leading questions generally are presumed more likely to influence children's reports than are open-ended questions (Dent & Stephenson, 1979). Experts have debated which types of questions are truly leading; however, they generally agree that questions that suggest new information and tempt, pressure, or coerce a child to agree with the suggested information are highly leading. The question "Your daddy touched your pee-pee, didn't he?" is an example of a highly leading question. When the suggested information is erroneous, such questions are more accurately labeled misleading questions. Highly leading questions are generally considered to be the riskiest types of questions, particularly when used with preschoolers.

Other questions fall between the extremes of open-ended and highly leading. For example, "focused" questions involve direct inquiry about persons, body parts, actions, circumstances, or other potentially relevant topics. Focused questions may introduce a new topic but do not combine the identity of the "actor" with a potentially abusive "action" within the same question. Examples of focused questions include the following:

Tell me about your dad. What do you like about him Are there any things you don't like about him?

The impact of focused questions on the accuracy of children's statements has been largely neglected in the empirical literature. Many knowledgeable authorities have taken the position that focused questions not only are acceptable but are necessary to elicit reliable information, about possible abuse. Certainly, the empirical literature supports the notion that younger children often require greater specificity in questions asked of them so that they can more clearly understand the subject of the inquiry and so that their relevant memories can be adequately accessed. And, as noted previously, sexually abused children often are reluctant to discuss their abuse and may be unwilling to volunteer information unless asked specific questions about possible abuse. By contrast, critics of focused questions argue that such questions are dangerously suggestive and are likely to mislead children.

Another type of question, which has been the subject of some empirical research, is the "direct" question. Unlike focused questions, direct questions combine the identity of the actor with the potentially abusive action. Thus direct questions would appear considerably more suggestive than focused questions. Examples of direct questions include the following:

Although concern that direct questions may lead nonabused children to falsely claim that they were abused is legitimate, research suggests that exclusive reliance on open-ended questions is likely to lead to a failure to identify a significant proportion of sexually abused children. A recent study explored the relative costs and benefits of open-ended and direct questions relating to genital touching. Saywitz, Goodman, Nicholas, and Moan (1991) conducted an experiment in which 72 nonabused 5- and 7-year-old girls were questioned about vaginal and anal touching occurring during a routine medical examination. Different types of questions, as well as anatomically detailed dolls and props, were used in this study. When those children whose vaginal and anal areas were examined were initially asked, in open-ended fashion, to "tell everything you remember about your visit to the doctor's," 78% of the children failed to reveal vaginal touching and 89% failed to reveal anal touching. When the same children were then asked direct questions, using anatomically detailed dolls as models (e.g., "Did the doctor touch you there?" pointing to the anatomically detailed doll's vagina and anus), only 14% and 21 %, respectively, failed to disclose the vaginal and anal touching. Thus children may fail to acknowledge even innocuous genital touching when asked open-ended questions, and direct questions may elicit far more valid claims of genital contact from children whose genitals were touched.

The Saywitz et al. (1991) study also found that such direct questions elicited relatively few false reports of vaginal and anal touching from those 5- and 7-year-old children who had not experienced such touching (i.e., less than 3% falsely claimed vaginal touching and less than 6% falsely claimed anal touching). Moreover, of the three children in this study who erroneously responded "yes" to one of the direct questions concerning genital touch, two were unable to provide any elaboration whatsoever about the alleged genital touching when questioned further. Skilled forensic interviewers recognize that it would be entirely inappropriate to conclude that child sexual abuse had occurred based solely on a single, unelaborated "yes" response of this sort.

Props, such as anatomically detailed dolls, have been the source of much controversy. Koocher et al. (1995) recently summarized the available research on the use and effects of anatomically detailed dolls during child interviews. They concluded that research to date mainly supports the use of anatomically detailed dolls as a communication or memory aid for children 5 years or older, albeit with a certain risk of contributing to some children's errors if misleading questions are used along

with the dolls. When younger children are interviewed with anatomically detailed dolls and certain other types of props, an increased risk of misleading appears to exist. This may be due to younger children's greater tendency toward suggestibility and to their difficulties with "symbolic representation" (i.e., the ability to use anatomically detailed dolls or other props to represent particular people and experiences). For example, anatomically detailed dolls and "distractor props" (e.g., a tongue depressor with no relevance to the event in question) were found to mislead 3- and 4-year-olds when they were questioned about a painful invasive medical procedure they had experienced that involved urethral penetration, although additional correct information was elicited as well (Goodman, 1994). Bruck et al. (1995) also found that a significant proportion of 3-year-olds used available props (e.g., a spoon, hammer, stethoscope, stick) to demonstrate on anatomical dolls how they were touched during a just-completed pediatric examination. When misleading questions were used with these 3-year-olds (with or without anatomical dolls), their reports about genital touching were quite inaccurate, with nearly 50% falsely claiming or falsely denying experiencing genital touching. Koocher et al. emphasized that much research remains to be done in this area, particularly with regard to the effects of using anatomically detailed dolls in forensic interviews with preschoolers.

In summary, research that empirically tests the relative costs and benefits of using various types of abuse-related questions and props during forensic interviews of children remains surprisingly sparse (Koocher et al., 1995). Empirical studies that have investigated the effects of various types of abuse focused questions with 5- and 7-year-olds have found that the proportion of children actually misled by direct questions (e.g., "Did the doctor touch you here?") was relatively small. Further, the nature of the false reports of genital contact elicited in these studies generally would not lead prudent investigators to conclude that abuse had occurred in the absence of other supporting evidence.

It should be emphasized, however, that the extent to which children can be misled by various types of questions, suggestions, and props to falsely claim or deny abuse remains uncertain. Although they do not duplicate real-life abuse investigation situations, analog studies suggest that repeated suggestive questioning occurring in an accusatory context may be particularly risky with preschoolers, as may the use of anatomically detailed dolls and other props — especially when combined with highly misleading questions.

Children Are More Likely to Be Misled When They Do Not Understand What is Expected of Them

Research suggests that children are unlikely to understand what is expected of them in complex and unfamiliar situations (Dickson, 1981; Flavell & Wellman, 1977). Saywitz and Nathanson (1992) found that 7- and 8-year-olds harbored many misperceptions about the task of testifying in a mock testimony experiment. Preschoolers, because of their limited life experiences and greater dependence on adults for direction, can be expected to be even more confused than older children about the task demands inherent in forensic interviews (Newhoff & Launer, 1984; Saywitz & Geiselman, in press).

Forensic interviews are quite unlike children's everyday experiences in important ways. Rarely are children required to travel to an unfamiliar location, separate from their caregivers, and answer, with precision and complete candor, a series of difficult and often confusing questions posed by an unfamiliar adult about potentially embarrassing and painful events that may have occurred weeks, months, or years earlier. Further, for a child's responses to have the potential for such profound consequences as are associated with child abuse investigations is highly unusual.

Another important difference between the task demands of a forensic interview and the expectations of children under normal circumstances relates to the acceptability of "guessing." In routine interactions with adults, children often are encouraged to guess answers to adults' questions when they are uncertain of the correct responses (Saywitz & Geiselman, in press). Children sometimes may

think that any question by an adult requires a definitive answer and that an "I don't know" response is not an option (Raskin & Yuille, 1989). Children may also guess rather than provide an "I don't know" or an "I don't remember" response because they consider not knowing to be a sign of failure (Moan-Hardie, 1991).

When children are unaware that, unlike in other situations, to report accurately and to refrain from guessing are critical in forensic interviews, there is a risk not only that children will guess but that they will be misled. For example, children who are asked questions to which they do not know the answers may incorporate the interviewers' suggestions into their guesses.

Forensic interviews also differ from the typical activities of children with regard to the unacceptability of fantasy play and imagination. Pretending and imagination play an important part in children's lives. Yet, the goal of forensic interviews is to find out what, if anything, really happened. Although children are generally able to distinguish between pretense and reality by 3 years of age (Au, as cited in Myers, 1992, p. 98), they may not realize the necessity of making such a distinction in the forensic interview setting. This is especially the case when common fantasy props such as dolls are presented and children are asked to pretend that the dolls represent themselves or others (see the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children's [APSAC, 1995] Practice Guidelines: Use of Anatomical Dolls in Child Sexual Abuse Assessments; Koocher et al., 1995). To summarize, children are more likely to be susceptible to being misled when they have not been made aware of the unusual and unique task demands of forensic interviews.

Both Children and Adults Tend to Be More Easily Misled When Their Memory for the Event in Question Is Weak

When an individual has a strong memory of an event, that memory becomes one's reference point for determining the accuracy of suggested information about that event. When one's memory of the event in question is weak or absent, the potential for uncritical acceptance of suggested information or misinformation about the event increases. Further, children may be more likely than adults to guess answers when in doubt, especially when "I don't know" is not presented as a response option (Saywitz & Moan-Hardie, 1994).

The strength of one's memory of an event is determined by many situational, socioemotional, and individual difference factors (Goodman & Saywitz, 1994)., Research has shown that, for children and adults, memory fades with the passage of time (Saywitz & Geiselman, in press). The longer the retention interval (i.e., the elapsed time between an event and one's attempt to recall the event), the weaker the memory trace, all other things being equal. Individuals tend to have stronger recall for central actions and familiar settings and events than they do for peripheral details and unfamiliar settings and events (Fivush & Shukat, 1995; Saywitz et al., 1991; Tucker, Mertin, & Luszcz, 1990).

Another consistent finding in memory research is that the amount and accuracy of information provided in interviews about past events typically increases with age (Goodman & Reed, 1986; Leippe, Romanczyk, & Manion, 1992). Nevertheless, even 3 year-olds have been shown to recall substantial amounts of information accurately and to resist suggestion when questioned properly (Ceci, 1993).

The completeness of the recall of younger children, however, is more easily influenced by the context in which the memory is retrieved. For example, Ceci, Bronfenbrenner, and Baker (1988) found that young children were able to remember more in their homes than they were in an unfamiliar laboratory. Also, returning to the scene of the event to be recalled, and being able to use "models" to demonstrate what occurred, enabled 2 1/2-to 4-year-olds to recall significantly more than they did when questioned in a waiting room and had to rely exclusively on verbal means of communication (Price & Goodman, 1990).

Children and adults are better at remembering things that are of interest to them and are personally meaningful and significant (Saywitz & Geiselman, in press). Even children as young as 2 and 4 years of age have been shown to recall a highly interesting event (i.e., getting candy) better than an uninteresting one (Somerville, Wellman, & Cultice, 1983). In some situations, interest value and salience have been shown to be more potent variables than age in determining memory and suggestibility.

For example, in an experiment by King and Yuille (1987), children and adults viewed a thief stealing a bicycle and subsequently were asked misleading questions about the thief s attire including the type of shoes he wore. Because the children considered the particular brand-name sneaker worn by the thief to be a status symbol among their peers, they were better attuned to this detail than were adults, who did not regard the sneakers as particularly noteworthy. As a result, the children were superior to adults in resisting misleading questions concerning information that was more salient for children than it was for adults.

Age-related trends in memory appear to be related, in part, to comprehension abilities as well (Saywitz & Geiselman, in press). That is, young children are less able to comprehend complex events and may not recognize the forensic significance of that which they perceive or attempt to recall. For example, Kuehnle (in press) described a case in which a 3-year-old boy was fellated by his babysitter. The boy's mother returned home unexpectedly and caught the babysitter in the act. When the authorities questioned the child, he was unable, to recall what the perpetrator had worn or anything the perpetrator had said, but he did recall the fellatio and reported verbatim what his emotionally distraught mother screamed at the babysitter when she discovered her son being abused.

Information-processing abilities have also been implicated in age-related differences in memory (Saywitz & Geiselman, in press). Young children have limited abstracting abilities and therefore are , less adept at organizing similar information into distinct categories, even when the information is memorable. For example, children who received medical examinations in which their temperatures were taken were found to respond "no" to the question, "Did the doctor put something in your mouth?" Yet the same children responded "yes" when asked the more specific question, "Did the doctor put a thermometer in your mouth?" (Saywitz et al., 1991). Children who witnessed crimes involving guns or knives have also been known to deny observing "weapons" but acknowledged seeing guns or knives.

Young children experience greater difficulty than do adults in accessing information they have stored, just as one might have difficulty accessing information in a computer without properly identifying the document that contains the data. Young children often have much more data stored in their memories than they are independently able to retrieve. Thus, when asked open-ended questions (e.g., "Tell me everything that happened"), young children's responses are most likely to be accurate but woefully incomplete (Goodman & Saywitz, 1994).

Although the amount of information elicited in interviews with preschoolers increases in response to more specific questions, so do inaccuracies in their reports, particularly if such questions are misleading. This creates a dilemma for an interviewer who is attempting to obtain a detailed account while at the same time trying to avoid misleading the preschooler.

In summary, younger children generally have less complete recall than do older children and adults. Children frequently remember a great deal more than they reveal in response to open-ended questions. Although specific questions typically elicit more information, they also increase the chance of misleading children, as does insisting on definitive answers about things children do not remember well. When children have a weak memory of the events in question, they are more likely to incorporate suggested information into their responses. This may also result in actual changes in their memories of the events.

Children Tend to Be More Suggestible When They Perceive the Interviewer to Be Authoritarian, Unfriendly, or Intimidating

In the lives of children, adults have the special status of being the dispensers of rewards and punishments (Kohlberg, 1969). Children learn quite early in life that compliance is a quality in children that adults cherish strongly. Being a "good" boy or girl is often equated with complying with adults' wishes and being agreeable with adults. Conversely, children often are taught that being noncompliant and disagreeable with adults is bad and that such behavior is likely to result in disapproval or punishment (Saywitz & Moan-Hardie, 1994).

Children thus may sometimes agree with erroneous suggestions contained in an adult's misleading suggestions to please the adult or to avoid displeasing the adult, even when such children recognize that the adult's information is erroneous. Some children may be too fearful or intimidated to challenge or disagree with, an adult, especially if the adult is authoritarian and unfriendly (Goodman, Bottoms, Schwartz-Kenny, & Rudy, 1991). Younger children generally appear to be more easily intimidated than older children and adults (Saywitz & Goodman, 1996). In addition, intimidation can be an especially potent factor in young children's susceptibility to being misled regarding abuse-related events (Goodman & Saywitz, 1994).

Many children simply believe that they are not allowed to challenge or correct an adult. One 7-year-old girl explained, in a study on children's suggestibility "I wouldn't tell the principal he's wrong!" (Moan-Hardie, 1991).

Preschoolers, particularly those under 5 years old, tend to be more vulnerable than older children and adults to going along with interviewers' misleading questions and suggestions, even when such children realize the suggested information is incorrect (King & Yuille, 1987; Saywitz et al., 1991; Zaragoza, 1987). The tendency among some young children to knowingly acquiesce to adults' misleading suggestions can be reduced when the interviewers are friendly rather than unfriendly or authoritarian. Research by Goodman et al. (1991) has shown that 3- and 4-year-olds who were interviewed by an adult who acted friendly (i.e., smiled, complimented the child, and gave the child cookies) were more resistant to misleading abuse-related questions (e.g., "She touched your bottom, didn't she?") than were same-age children who were interviewed by a "neutral" adult (i.e., who was more distant, rarely smiled, and did not compliment the child or give the child a snack).

In another study investigating the effects of interviewer characteristics on children's suggestibility, Ceci, Ross, and Toglia (1987) found that 3-year-olds were more likely to acquiesce to, misleading information when it was presented by an adult interviewer than they were when the same information was presented by a 7-year-old. Thus the interviewer's demeanor with the child can play an important part in either exacerbating or diminishing young children's acquiescence to misleading information.

Children Tend to Be More Suggestible When They Think the Interviewer Is Knowledgeable About the Event in Question

Younger children often view adults as being virtually omniscient. Indeed, children are told that adults have "eyes in the back of their heads" enabling adults to be ever aware of their children's behavior — or misbehavior. "How else would mommy know I took a cookie?" contemplates 4-year-old Kathy, with remnants of chocolate chips incriminatingly decorating her two front teeth. As Saywitz and Geiselman (in press) note, young children soon come to realize that parents and teachers often know the answers to the questions they ask of children. Such experiences tend to reinforce children's belief in the omniscience of adults.

Because young children tend to perceive adults as being so much wiser and more knowledgeable than themselves, there is the risk that, in forensic interviews, some children will presume that the adult interviewer somehow inherently knows more than they do about the event in question, even if the

children clearly recall the event and even if the adult interviewer was not present during the event. In fact, a study of 80 7- and 8-year-olds' perceptions of forensic interviewers who had previously interviewed them showed that many of the children believed the adult interviewers already knew the answers to the questions they asked, even though they knew the interviewer was not present at the event under investigation (Saywitz & Nathanson, 1992).

Some research has shown that, when an interviewer has "hunches" or preconceived notions about what has occurred based on misinformation provided before the interview, the interviewer tends to fashion interviews in a way that misleads children to confirm the interviewer's erroneous hunches or beliefs (Ceci, 1993). In a study described by Ceci, 34% of the 3- to 4-year-olds and 18% of the 5- to 6-year-olds were misled to, corroborate one or more nonevents that the interviewer mistakenly believed. Although many of the children initially affirmed the suggested misinformation reluctantly or inconsistently, several later affirmed such misinformation without hesitation after being exposed to repeatedly misleading questions.

Consequently, during forensic interviews, children may be inclined to defer to the adult interviewer's suggestions about what occurred rather than trusting their own perceptions and memory of an event because they presume that the adult is somehow more knowledgeable than they are. The interviewer may also be suggesting (e.g., by asking leading questions) that they are, in fact, knowledgeable about the event in question (Saywitz et al., 1991). When children are questioned concerning events about which they have little or no knowledge, they may be all the more inclined to go along with information suggested by the presumably more knowledgeable interviewer.

Suggested Strategies for Minimizing Suggestibility in Forensic Interviews with Children

The strategies described here incorporate findings from the relevant empirical literature as well as some innovative practices that have been developed by experienced forensic interviewers. Several of the suggested strategies have been empirically validated in laboratory studies that approximate, to varying degrees, real-life child abuse investigations. Other strategies, as developed by experienced forensic interviewers, have yet to be tested empirically, how ever, they appear to have practical utility and "face" validity. Nevertheless, readers should be cautioned that research in this area is still lacking in many respects, and, as noted earlier, such research, can never fully duplicate the myriad variables present in actual child abuse investigations. Thus professional judgment and discretion will continue to play a vital role in forensic interviews with suspected child abuse victims.

The suggested interview practices and strategies are organized into four sections: the interview setting, interviewer characteristics, clarifying expectations, and questioning strategies. The critical role of corroboration is also discussed. It is beyond the scope of this article to describe in detail the nuances associated with each of the suggested strategies. When applicable, further readings are suggested.

The Interview Setting

The interview setting should be one in which the child feels reasonably comfortable. Preschoolers especially are likely to feel intimidated, anxious, and disoriented in unfamiliar and formal settings. Such dysphoric feelings and disorientation increase vulnerability to being misled. In some situations, to interview a child in his or her home, where children often are most comfortable, may be appropriate. If the child's home is a potential source of anxiety (e.g., if the suspected perpetrator lives in the home), this may not be a viable option. Also, if individuals in the home are likely to influence a child's statements, the home interview may be contraindicated. Local policies and technical considerations (e.g., videotaping through a one-way mirror) may also be incompatible with a home interview.

Returning to the scene of the alleged crime may trigger increased memory of the event in question. This may be too distressing for some children, so the child's level of comfort should be the determining factor.

When interviews occur in unfamiliar settings (e.g., a police station), such settings can be made more "child friendly" by decorating them with familiar storybook figures and drawings by other children. Child sized furniture is also desirable.

The setting should be private, informal, and free from distracting commotion and props (Saywitz & Nathanson, 1992). To have some drawing materials and a few toys available may be helpful, but too many objects of this sort can be distracting and potentially misleading.

If anatomically detailed dolls are to be used, it may be best to keep these out of sight until needed. To prominently display unclothed anatomically detailed dolls at the outset of the interview is inappropriate because this practice may result in misleading as well as distracting or distressing the child. (See the APSAC 1995] Practice Guidelines for further guidance.)

Interviewer Characteristics

1. Approach the interview with an open mind. A variety of alternative explanations should be considered by the interviewer, and information provided before the interview should not be presumed to be accurate. Miscommunication, misinterpretation, and inadvertent or deliberate misleading may account for preliminary allegations of abuse, and the interviewer should consider these possibilities as well as the possibility that the child was abused. Interviewers who approach the interview with an open mind are less likely to inadvertently suggest information to the child and also are less likely to be perceived by the child as knowledgeable about the facts of the case.

2. Be friendly with the child. Suggestibility is reduced significantly when an interviewer develops and maintains rapport with a child. Smiling at the child, complimenting the child, and ensuring that the child is as comfortable as possible serve to enhance the child's resistance, to being misled. The interviewer must be cautious, however, to avoid selectively reinforcing the child (i.e., smiling at the child or giving the child a snack only when the child makes statements consistent with the interviewer's hunches).

Clarifying Expectations

1. Emphasize the importance of being truthful and refraining from pretending. Without implying that a child is likely to lie, an interviewer should underscore that it is especially important to state only what really happened. It is important, especially with preschoolers, to determine whether the child can distinguish between fact and fantasy. An interviewer should explain that it may be fine to "pretend" or to "make up stories" in other situations but not during the forensic interview.

2. Explain to the child that you are uninformed, especially regarding the facts of the case. Interviewers can minimize a child's susceptibility to being misled by informing the child that the interviewer is ignorant of the facts of the case. Instructions such as "I wasn't there, so I don't know what happened and need your help to learn about what happened" can be helpful.

Detective Rick Cage, a highly skilled forensic interviewer often uses what he refers to as the "Columbo approach" when interviewing a child, portraying himself as generally uninformed, quite puzzled, and needing the child's help. This approach encourages the child to educate the apparently naive interviewer.

3. Encourage the child to admit confusion rather than guessing. Studies by Saywitz and Snyder (1993) have shown that sensitizing a child to the possibility that-an interviewer may ask confusing or "tricky" questions, and role playing appropriate assertive responses to be used by the child when he or

she is confused, can reduce the risk that the child will guess. When accompanied by role-playing, instructions along these lines can discourage guessing when a child is confused:

Some of the questions I'll be asking you will be tricky and they might get you mixed up because they get lots of people mixed up. I need your help so I don't get you mixed up. If I ask you something that makes you get mixed up, please just say, "Huh?" or "I don't know what you mean." Then I'll say the question with new words to help you understand.

This strategy should be role-played with the child, using only non-abuse-related questions, and the child should be praised for appropriately admitting confusion and for not guessing. Corrective feedback should be given to a child who guesses or fails to admit confusion. Nonsense questions such as these can be used to assess and facilitate the child's willingness to admit confusion:

"When Mickey Mouse was little and Donald Duck was big, what did the Ninja Turtle see in the swimming pool on top of the car?"

4. Encourage the child to admit lack of memory or knowledge rather than guessing. Saywitz et al. describe a strategy that has been incorporated into the "modified cognitive interview," which appears to reduce the likelihood that children will guess answers to questions (Saywitz, Geiselman & Bomstein, 1992). Instructions such as these can discourage children from guessing answers to questions:

Nobody knows everything, do they? I'll be asking you lots of questions today. Some will be easy and some will be hard. Sometimes you may not know what the right answer is. Maybe you forgot or you just don't know. If you don't know what the right answer is for sure, please don't guess an answer. Only tell me what you really know for sure and what you really remember. If you don't know the answer or if you forget, just say, "I don't know" or "I forget," because that's the right answer.

As with the preceding strategy, research and clinical experience have shown that mere instructions of this sort have little effect unless they are accompanied by practice or role-playing with the child (Saywitz & Snyder, 1993). It is critical that this concept is role-played with the child and that the child is praised for admitting "I don't know" at the appropriate times. The child should also be given corrective feedback if he or she guesses answers. The interviewer may role-play this concept by asking the child about things of which the child has no knowledge or memory such as "How old am I?" "What is my wife's name?" "How many hairs are on my head?" and "What did I have for breakfast?"

Although it is important to discourage a child from guessing, research and clinical experience have shown that there is a risk that a child may overgeneralize the "I don't know" response if an interviewer overemphasizes this response set (Saywitz & Snyder, 1993). An interviewer should encourage the child to be selective in using the "I don't know" response and make sure to instruct the child to "tell me the answer if you know it."

5. Advise the child that if questions are repeated, this does not mean the child's previous response was incorrect. Sometimes forensic interviewers ask children the same question more than once. This may be unintentional, as when the interviewer forgets that the question was previously asked and answered, or it may be deliberate, as when the interviewer is attempting to assess the child's consistency in responding. In either case, the child may be misled by repetitive questions, especially when the questions are repeated verbatim.

When questions are repeated, children may infer that their initial responses were incorrect or displeasing to the interviewers. As a result, children's confidence in their earlier responses may be undermined, and they may then provide alternate responses. Some children who remain confident in the accuracy of their earlier responses may still feel pressured to alter their subsequent responses to avoid displeasing interviewers — particularly if the interviewers are intimidating.

To minimize the likelihood of children being misled by repetitive questions, interviewers are advised to rephrase repeated questions and to explain that questions are not being repeated because the child's initial responses were wrong or undesirable. When children understand that interviewers are not repeating questions because their earlier answers were incorrect, children are less likely to change answers they know are correct to appease interviewers. Instructions similar to these may reduce the potential misleading effects of repeated questions:

Sometimes I might forget what I already asked you. So, I might ask you the same question again and again. If I ask you the same question more than one time, it's not because you gave me the wrong answer the first time. It's just because I forget sometimes. You just always give me the answer you know is right, even if I ask the same question again and again, okay?

6. Give the child permission to decline answering questions that are too difficult to discuss at the moment. For a child who has been abused, certain aspects of the abuse may be too embarrassing or frightening for the child to discuss at a particular moment. A child may be unwilling to volunteer this information and may take refuge in denying or minimizing the abuse, especially when asked misleading questions that imply the absence of abuse or minimize the abuse. Thus, when misleading questions of this sort are asked, an embarrassed or frightened child may avoid the topic of abuse and the concomitant distress it provokes by agreeing with an interviewer's suggestion that "nothing" or "nothing else" happened. An interviewer should enable an abused child to avoid discussing aspects of the abuse that are too frightening, embarrassing, or painful to talk about at the time while still attempting to elicit as much factual information as possible.

Some nonabused children who have been deliberately or inadvertently pressured or influenced to falsely claim abuse may feel distressed about continuing to perpetuate such false claims. Giving them permission to avoid discussing topics that are too distressing may empower them to resist repeating or affirming false allegations. Instructions such as the following can be helpful in discouraging both false denials and false claims of abuse in these situations: "If you do not want to answer some of the questions right now, you don't have to. Just tell me, 'I don't want to answer that question right now' if it is too hard to talk about."

To overemphasize the point that the child need not tell the interviewer everything at the moment can be counterproductive because the child may opt to avoid talking about the topic altogether. As always, an interviewer's sensitivity to the child's level of distress and the interviewer's judgment about the child's ability to tolerate a discussion about certain topics related to possible abuse are the key determinants in how and whether this strategy is used. When a child is given permission not to talk about aspects of the suspected abuse that are too distressing, this can, paradoxically, cause the child to be more willing and able to discuss what actually occurred. By giving such permission, an interviewer is communicating a sensitivity to the child's predicament and is empowering the child with choices about the direction of the interview. The child may then feel a sense of control and may feel safe enough to discuss material that would otherwise be too threatening or embarrassing to discuss.

7. Encourage the child to disagree with you and to correct you when you misstate the facts. Disagreement and correction demonstrate that a child has a clear grasp of the facts, is not responding unthinkingly, and is willing to be assertive with an interviewer when the interviewer makes mistakes (Myers, 1992, pp. 49-50). This behavior also shows that the child is not easily misled. Of the various

strategies described in this article, encouraging children to disagree with the interviewer's incorrect statements requires the highest level of clinical judgment and sophistication. Because deliberate misleading is attempted in this strategy, the interviewer must be acutely aware of the potential for misleading the child about pertinent facts relating to the investigation. Therefore, this strategy is not recommended for interviewers who lack experience or training. The following instructions and role-playing exercises should occur before and separate from abuse-specific questioning:

Sometimes I get mixed up and say the wrong thing. I need your help so I don't say the wrong thing. If I do say the wrong thing, will you please tell me? Just say, "That's not right" or "You made a mistake," okay?

Again, research has shown that mere instructions of this sort have a limited effect unless they are accompanied by practice or role-playing with the child. Therefore, before abuse-specific questioning, an interviewer should deliberately misstate information the child knows to be incorrect. Such deliberately misleading questions should be relatively innocuous and should not be specific to any aspect of the alleged abuse because this may contaminate the child's statements. For example, an interviewer might ask a child who has no sister and has already told the interviewer of this the deliberately misleading question, "Is your sister's name Mary?" Or, an interviewer may point to a picture of Mickey Mouse and say to a child who has already correctly identified Mickey Mouse, "No, that's Donald Duck, isn't it?" Several deliberately misleading questions of this sort should be asked, and the child should be praised for catching the interviewer's mistakes and for correcting the interviewer.

If a child initially goes along with the erroneous information contained in an interviewer's deliberately misleading questions, the interviewer should bring this to the child's attention and further encourage the child to listen very carefully for the interviewer's mistakes and to correct the interviewer when such mistakes are made. If in fact a child continues to agree with an interviewer's misstated information despite a concerted effort to get the child to correct the interviewer's mistakes, the interviewer should be especially cautious about the child's attentiveness and vulnerability to suggestion. The interviewer should then take steps to heighten the child's attention and should be extremely cautious about using potentially misleading questions with such a child.

Because it is sometimes argued that children are inherently highly suggestible, demonstrating that the child whose testimony is in question was able to resist non-abuse-related misleading questions during the same forensic interview in which abuse was alleged can be invaluable. Although the child's demonstrated resistance to non-abuse-related misleading questions does not prove that the child was also resistant to abuse-related misleading questions, it can go a long way in countering the argument that the child in question yielded to the interviewer's suggestive questions because children, as a class, are so easily misled by interviewers. Such evidence can also be helpful in establishing indicia of reliability in the context of exceptions for hearsay statements.

Questioning Strategies

1. Bear in mind that misleading can occur in any direction depending on the nature of the interviewer's suggestions. Abused children can be misled to deny or minimize their abuse, just as nonabused children can be misled to claim they were abused. Forensic interviewers should be mindful of this fact and should structure their interviews accordingly.

2. Ask developmentally appropriate questions. Asking incomprehensible questions increases the risk of guessing responses and misleading. Questions should match children's vocabularies and understanding of concepts (e.g., units of time, causality).

3. Avoid using highly leading or coercive questions. The use of highly leading and coercive questions is not justifiable in forensic interviews. Such questions can create stereotypes, an accusatory context,

social demand features, and source misattention errors that can serve to distort the responses of children — especially younger preschoolers.

4. Avoid repetitive suggestions and multiple repetitive interviews. Repetition of misleading suggestions has been shown to be especially risky when used with preschoolers. Also, subjecting children to multiple interviews increases the likelihood of misleading them. Coordinated approaches to interviewing can minimize the need for multiple repetitive interviews and reduce the risk of misleading children. Such coordinated approaches also spare children the unnecessary distress of having to be interviewed on multiple occasions.

5. Begin with open-ended questions and, after a free narrative is elicited, ask focused questions as needed and justified. Although interviewers often are cautioned about using focused questions because of the potential for influencing and distorting children's accounts, banning their use altogether is not realistic or advisable (Saywitz et al., 1991). Even the most skilled interviewers sometimes will ask focused questions that may be construed as leading or misleading.

Preschoolers in particular may require focused questions to clearly understand the content area being queried. Focused questions also serve to trigger memory not otherwise available. In addition, research relating to the disclosure process among sexually abused children as well as among, nonabused children questioned about genital contact occurring during a medical examination offers a compelling argument for the judicious use of focused questions, particularly for children 5 years and older.

6. Adequately document relevant questions and responses. Abuse-related questions and responses, in particular, should be well-documented so that there exists a reliable record of the child's responses (verbal and nonverbal) and the manner of questioning used to elicit those responses. This is especially critical in interviewing preschoolers, with whom there exists a greater potential for miscommunication and misleading. (See APSAC's [1990] Guidelines for Psychosocial Evaluation of Suspected Abuse in Young Children for further information.)

Saywitz et al. (1992) have developed a "modified cognitive interview" technique that has been shown to substantially increase the completeness of the reports of 7- to 12-year-olds without increasing inaccurate reporting. In one study, the modified cognitive interview resulted in a 45% increase in information recalled when 7- to 12-year-olds received practice using the strategies involved (Saywitz et al., 1992). This technique involves reconstructing the circumstances surrounding the event, reporting everything that is recalled, recalling in various orders, and recalling from varied perspectives. Research is under way to determine the efficacy of these techniques with preschoolers. Some evidence exists that the "changing perspectives" technique may be confusing for young children (Geiselman & Padilla, 1988; Saywitz & Geiselman, in press).

"Narrative elaboration" is another promising questioning technique (Saywitz & Geiselman, in press). This procedure is designed to increase the detail and relevance of information children provide without the use of specific questions (Saywitz & Snyder, 1993; Saywitz, Snyder, & Lamphear, 1990).

Before being asked to provide a narrative account of what happened, children are taught that their narrative should contain a high level of detail regarding the following categories of information:

Children are initially presented with cards with drawings representing each of the four categories and practice using the cards to remind them to include details from each category. Later, they are asked to describe the event under investigation. In one study, 6- to 11-year-olds provided 53% more accurate

information in free recall than did children who did not receive this training. A modified version of the narrative elaboration technique is currently being tested with preschoolers. (See Saywitz & Geiselman, in press, for a more detailed description of this promising technique.)

Cage (1995) reminds us of the critical role of crime scene investigation and corroboration in cases of child maltreatment, a role that he believes tends to be neglected, particularly in child sexual abuse investigations. As noted earlier, the outcomes of child sexual abuse cases frequently hinge on the perceived credibility of the children's statements. Although even very young children often are capable of providing reliable information, especially when properly interviewed, they may be perceived as less credible than they actually are because of developmental limitations relating to their ability to provide persuasive verbal accounts of their experiences. This is particularly true when they are interviewed under nonoptimal conditions, which is often the case. Therefore, Cage argues, law enforcement officers should do their best to ensure that case outcomes are not solely dependent on the statements of children. The search for the truth is best served by a comprehensive approach that routinely includes a timely and intensive crime scene investigation and a search for corroborating evidence.

In some cases, corroborating evidence that is quite compelling will be found (e.g., DNA, pubic hairs found in incriminating locations). Such evidence can be invaluable in eliciting confessions from guilty parties. In other cases, a crime scene investigation may result in evidence that refutes the allegations. This, too, serves the truth-seeking function of the investigation. Thus the corroboration process should be an integral component of all child maltreatment investigations.

Although empirical research is imperfect and incomplete as it pertains to children's suggestibility, important findings from several recent studies Have converged. When interviewers are sensitive to the special developmental and emotional needs of children and structure their interviews accordingly, even very young preschoolers can be highly reliable sources of forensically relevant information. Although it is true that children often do wish to please adults who interview them, their desire to please becomes an asset rather than a liability when children clearly understand that adult interviewers are soliciting their help in arriving at the truth.

The corpus of research regarding children's suggestibility and the likely impact of various child interview practices cautions that those interviewers who are unfriendly or intimidating toward children, who approach the task with preconceived notions about what occurred, and who ask highly leading and inappropriately complex questions in an unfamiliar and anxiety-provoking context are most likely to elicit unreliable information from children. This is especially true when younger children are involved and when there exists a relatively long retention interval. Of some concern is the fact that the combination of practices most likely to mislead children are the very practices that commonly characterize the cross-examination of children in criminal trials. Although these practices are not unique to cross-examination, they occur with such frequency in this context that one must question how they serve the truth-seeking function of the judicial system.

Forensic interviewers are strongly encouraged to take reasonable steps to minimize the risk of misleading children either to falsely claim abuse, to minimize abuse, falsely deny abuse, or to recant their valid allegations of abuse. The suggested strategies for minimizing suggestibility effects are designed to reduce the amount of potentially misleading information suggested and to enhance children's resistance to being misled.

Findings from empirical studies serve to guide and inform forensic interview practices. Several strategies, based on empirical findings and field trials by experienced forensic interviewers, have been discussed. The strategies presented have been used in forensic practice and appear to be promising,

although further empirical study and judicial outcomes ultimately will determine their usefulness. In any case, the focus on children's suggestibility and interview techniques should not obscure the critical role of corroboration in child sexual abuse cases.

It is important to note that the suggested strategies may serve not only to enhance children's resistance to being misled but also to enhance the perception of children's credibility by the triers of fact. When an interviewer is attacked on the grounds that a child was misled by suggestive practices, the use of these strategies is likely to make the forensic interview more defensible. Most important, when children are interviewed in a developmentally sensitive and supportive manner, the truth-seeking mission of child maltreatment investigations is most likely to be accomplished.

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Goodman, G. S., & Saywitz, K.J. (1994). Memories of abuse: Interviewing children when sexual victimization is suspected. Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 3, 645-661.

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Reprinted with permission from:
Lyon, T. (1999). The new wave in children's suggestibility research: A critique. Cornell law Review. 84(1004).

THE NEW WAVE IN CHILDREN'S SUGGESTIBILITY RESEARCH: A CRITIQUE

Thomas D. Lyon *

* Associate Professor, University of Southern California Law School, Los Angeles, California. Email: tlyon@law.usc.edu. Thanks to Scott Altaian, Mark Everson, Brian Holmgren, Michael Lamb, Martin Levine, Edward McCaffrey, Jeffrey Rachlinski, Elyn Saks, Karen Saywitz, Eric Talley, Michael Wald, Helen Westcott, and the participants at the University of Southern California Law School Faculty Workshop for their comments on drafts. Thanks to Verinder Shaw and to Hazel Lord and her staff at the University of Southern California Law Library for research assistance.

The new wave in children's suggestibility research consists of a prestigious group of researchers in developmental psychology who argue that children are highly vulnerable to suggestive interviewing techniques. ... The new wave emphasized that Goodman's work involved interviewers who typically asked leading questions only once, in a single interview, without strong motivations on the part of either the interviewer or the child to report nonevents falsely. In the first interview, the researcher simply asked the children whether the events had occurred. On the fourth interview, the researcher asked the children to tell their stories to a puppet. Ceci and Bruck described the study as one in which, "during each interview, the children were asked two leading questions." Yet the new wave's research goes far beyond asking leading questions in assessing children's suggestibility. He is the director of the Institute for Psychological Therapies and has co-authored numerous books and articles, including three on allegations of sexual abuse with his colleague Hollida Wakefield. In terms of interviewing children, the analogy would imply that any false allegation of sexual abuse produced by an interviewing method renders that method unacceptable, no matter how many true allegations the method elicits. In terms of sexual abuse, this assumption would mean that we interview children about whom we have no suspicion of abuse....

The new wave in children's suggestibility research consists of a prestigious group of researchers in developmental psychology who argue that children are highly vulnerable to suggestive interviewing techniques. Because of its scientific credentials, its moderate tone, and its impressive body of research, the new wave presents a serious challenge to those who have claimed that children are unlikely to allege sexual abuse falsely. Although we can learn much from the research, concerns over society's ability to detect abuse motivate three criticisms. First, the new-wave researchers assume that highly suggestive interviewing techniques are the norm in abuse investigations, despite little empirical evidence to support

this claim. Second, the research neglects the characteristics of child sexual abuse that both make false allegations less likely and increase the need to guard against a failure to detect abuse when it actually has occurred. Third, the researchers' apparent value-free scientific treatment of the suggestibility issue obscures, rather than avoids, value judgments regarding the tradeoff between false allegations and false denials of sexual abuse. [*1005]

For most of this century, psychologists and legal commentators have doubted the reliability of children's statements, particularly when those statements involve claims of sexual abuse. Although Sigmund Freud originally believed his adult patients' reports of childhood incest, his conviction that "surely such widespread perversions against children are not very probable" nl led to his discovery of the oedipal complex, whereby young children generate incestuous fantasies about their opposite-sex parent. n2 Jean Piaget was not interested in sexual fantasies per se, but believed that the egocentric young child's thought was guided by imagination and unconstrained by reality: "The child's mind is full of these 'ludistic' tendencies up to the age of 7-8, which means that before this age it is extremely difficult for him to distinguish between fabulation and truth." n3 In his classic treatise on evidence, John Henry Wigmore surveyed psychiatric evidence asserting that victims routinely fabricate allegations of sexual abuse and recommended that psychiatrists examine female complainants in sex-crime cases. n4

[*1006] Even critics of the giants of psychology often have assumed that children are wrong about sexual abuse. These critics merely move the source of the false allegation from the .child to an influential adult. Some researchers claimed that the incest fantasies Freud uncovered were the product of his therapeutic method, n5 in which he had applied "the strongest compulsion" to overcome the "greatest reluctance" in patients to relate such fantasies. n6 Others believed the fantasies were attributable to ambivalent parental affection. n7 One could doubt Piaget on similar grounds. Some criticized Piaget's early methods of questioning children as too difficult and too suggestive. n8 Skeptics thus charged that Freud and Piaget had not "discovered" oedipal fantasies and childish egocentrism, but had invented phenomena that they then implanted in their subjects' heads. This view is consistent with 100 years of research and commentary on children's suggestibility. The research dates back at least as far as the turn of the century, when prominent psychologists such as Binet, Stern, and Varendonck warned courts about the dangers of children's testimony. n9

In the 1970s, the women's movement persuaded researchers to take a new look at child sexual abuse. nlO Feminist writers reminded their readers that surveys revealed that one-fifth to one-third of adult [*1007] women had some sort of sexual encounter with an adult male during childhood, and approximately fifteen percent had experienced abuse that involved physical contact, nl 1 A 1985 survey of a nationally representative sample of adult women and men found that twenty-seven percent of the women and sixteen percent of the men reported sexual abuse during childhood, and excluding noncontact abuse reduced the percentages only slightly. nl2 These surveys proved that sexual abuse was more common than many people had imagined.

Spurred by growing awareness, legislators enacted legal reforms in the 1980s to facilitate the prosecution of child sexual abuse. Many states adopted special hearsay exceptions for

children's allegations of abuse, and the courts broadly interpreted existing hearsay exceptions to admit a greater number of statements. nl3 States also eliminated presumptions that children were testimonially incompetent. nl4 As a result, prosecutors exhibited greater willingness to pursue child sexual abuse allegations. nl5

In this environment, the suggestibility of children re-emerged as an area of interest for researchers. Consistent with the new Zeitgeist, researchers emphasized the accuracy of children's memories, particularly when recalling abuse. The leading figure in this movement was Gail Goodman, a developmental psychologist who was well-versed in laboratory research on memory development. Goodman challenged the traditional wisdom of suggestibility research by invoking the concept of ecological (or external) validity - the extent to which research applies to actual cases. nl6 In the vast majority of studies examining children's suggestibility, researchers asked children questions about [*1008] the peripheral details of trivial stimuli. nl7 Demonstrations of suggestibility in these contexts are of dubious applicability to child abuse investigations because abuse investigators question children about the central details of their physical interactions with familiar adults. nl8

Goodman's research agenda entailed a test of children's suggestibility in contexts that she believed better approximated abuse investigations. nl9 In a series of studies, she found that although there were age differences in suggestibility, n20 children were much less likely to assent falsely to questions related to physical or sexual abuse. n21 Her early research showed that children as young as four years of age were surprisingly resistant to suggestive questions implying abusive behavior. Young children rejected suggestions of abuse close to 100% of the time. n22

Sensitive to issues of ecological validity, Goodman acknowledged that her research lacked many of the essential details of abuse investigations, including motivations to lie, suggestions to the child regarding the character of the accused, and repeated interviewing over a period of time. n23 Nevertheless, popularized summaries of her work often omitted any discussion of the limitations of her research. n24 Commentators often asserted that young children are no more sug [*1009] gestible than adults, a view that dovetailed nicely with an older claim that children do not - in fact cannot - lie about sexual abuse. n25

The new-found faith in children's reliability proved to be short- lived. The first blow came from a spate of highly controversial allegations of abuse in daycare centers in the 1980s and early 1990s: Country Walk, McMartin, Fells Acres, Little Rascals, and Kelly Michaels. n26 Bizarre allegations of ritualistic abuse by preschool teachers became so incredible that they raised serious doubts regarding whether the abuse that the children reported was even possible, let alone provable beyond a reasonable doubt. n27 Critics focused attention on highly suggestive and sometimes overtly coercive interviewing by investigators, [*1010] therapists, and parents. n28 Doubts spread to children's allegations in less sensational cases. n29 If adults could mislead children to believe the unbelievable, then one reasonably could conclude that adults also could mislead children to believe in sexual abuse of a more mundane kind.

The scientific community delivered the second blow to a growing faith in children's abuse allegations. The daycare cases inspired a "new wave" of suggestibility research n30 that reinforces the conventional wisdom that children are highly suggestible. The new wave presents formidable qualifications. Stephen J. Ceci and his colleagues have performed the

most visible research. n31 Ceci is a professor of psychology at Cornell University, is a well-respected researcher in memory development and intelligence, and is the author of over 150 articles, chapters, and books. n32 Maggie Bruck, a frequent collaborator of Ceci, is a professor of psychology at McGill University and has an extremely impressive research background in learning disabilities. Michelle Leichtman, a former student of Ceci and the first author of perhaps the best known of the new wave's studies, is now an assistant professor of psychology at Harvard University. Ceci and Bruck co-authored a comprehensive review of the past 100 years of research on children's suggestibility, which received the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues' award for the best article of the year on child abuse and received acclaim as "'an excellent example of how rigorous research can inform important social problems.'" n33 Ceci, Bruck, and their colleagues have published research on children's suggestibility in the most prestigious peer-reviewed psychology jour [*1011] nals. n34 In February of 1998, Bruck, Ceci, and Helene Hembrooke published a review of children's suggestibility research in the American Psychologist, n35 a journal received by every member of the American Psychological Association.

Ceci and his colleagues also have written for legal audiences. In 1995, Ceci and Bruck co-authored Jeopardy in the Courtroom: A Scientific Analysis of Children's Testimony, published by the American Psychological Association. n36 The authors designed the book principally for judges, attorneys, and others who work in the field of child protection. n37 As the title indicates, the new wave could not embrace more emphatically the scientific method as the means to discover truth. In both this book and their other writings, the authors emphasize the superiority of the scientific method over clinical experience or adversarial courtroom battles. n38 Ceci and Brack's book marshals an impressive amount of research documenting the risk of false allegations arising from interviews with children about sexual abuse. Through a reanalysis of evidence once touted as proving children's resistance to suggestibility, and through carefully controlled research of their own, the authors provide a compelling picture of the potential dangers of suggestive abuse investigations.

Given its moderate tone and carefully stated conclusions, the work of the new wave likely will influence those in the courtroom who are interested in an impartial appraisal of a highly contentious field. Judges may look to the writings as background information that will shape their judgments regarding the admissibility and sufficiency of evidence in cases involving child sexual abuse. In 1993, after Kelly Michaels appealed her 1988 conviction to the New Jersey Supreme Court, Bruck and Ceci co-authored an amicus brief that reviewed the [* 1012] research on children's suggestibility, much of it their own. Forty-three research psychologists co-signed the brief. n39 Only three of the researchers asked to sign refused to do so; Gail Goodman was one of the three. n40 Affirming the lower court's reversal of Michaels's conviction, the court adopted an unprecedented procedure whereby a court may prevent child witnesses from testifying due to suggestive pretrial questioning. n41 In 1998, at Cheryl Amirault LeFave's fourth appeal challenging her 1987 conviction in the Fells Acre molestation case, Maggie Bruck submitted an affidavit summarizing recent suggestibility research and testified about the research at a Massachusetts Superior Court hearing. n42 In June of 1998, the court held that the research Bruck described constituted "new evidence" proving that suggestive interviewing practices "forever tainted" the testimony of the child witnesses, necessitating a new trial at which the court would not allow the child witnesses to testify. n43

As a result of rulings such as these, attorneys surely will refer to the new wave research in arguing motions regarding evidence, in questioning child interviewers, and in both selecting and questioning expert witnesses regarding the suggestibility of children. Ceci and Bruck have themselves served as expert witnesses in a few cases, n44 and more seasoned expert witnesses have referenced their research. n45 To the extent that the new wave reaches a larger audience - in part because of intense media coverage n46 - it likely will influence the attitudes of legislators who consider procedural modifications designed [* 1013] to facilitate or restrict the acceptance of child testimony, and perhaps even will influence lay people called to sit as jurors in sexual abuse trials.

Because of the new wave's potential influence, and because few psychologists and legal commentators have questioned its claims, n47 it deserves critical examination. As in any area in which science is called into service to set policy, one can challenge the impartiality of the new wave. Arguments labeled as "scientific" often fail to avoid subjective judgment, and more dangerously, tend to obscure subjectivity when it occurs.

This Article seeks to explore and challenge the often unstated factual assumptions and value judgments made by the new wave of suggestibility research. The new wave bases its research and its arguments on unproven factual assumptions about abuse investigations and allegations. The new wave presumes highly suggestive interviewing techniques are commonplace, based on an unrepresentative review of abuse investigations. It emphasizes cases in which multiple numbers of preschool children accuse day care providers of bizarre acts, presenting a distorted picture of the suggestibility problems in the typical case, in which interviews likely are less coercive and children are less vulnerable to suggestion.

With respect to the value judgments, I focus on the fact that inherent tradeoffs exist between two types of errors - false positives and false negatives - and note that the new wave emphasizes the risk of [*1014] false positives in the design and interpretation of their results. Given my own value preferences - an acute awareness of true cases of abuse and the difficulty abused children have in revealing abuse - I emphasize the effects of children's fear, loyalty, and embarrassment. These factors not only increase the likelihood of false negatives, but also reduce the likelihood of false positives in the cases that one most often sees in court - allegations of abuse against people close to the child.

Part I discusses the new wave's critique of Goodman's and her colleagues' research claims that children are surprisingly invulnerable to suggestion. The critique reveals the factual presuppositions and value preferences of the new wave's research program. Part II outlines the leading studies the new wave has conducted in anticipation of the critique that follows.

Part III begins the critique by discussing the real world of sexual abuse investigations. This Part emphasizes the importance of examining real-world interviewing to determine the extent to which one can apply the new wave's research to actual cases. The new wave emphasizes atypical cases - those in which investigators question large numbers of preschool children about the actions of day care providers. Investigators are less likely to use suggestive techniques in the typical abuse case - one involving a single victim and an alleged offender who is close to the child and her family. The new wave utilizes suggestive methods that have not been documented as prevalent among real- world interviews. Although research examining investigative interviews finds that large numbers of "leading" questions are asked, analysis of how "leading" is defined reveals that the new wave's research employs far more

suggestive questions. Finally, the new wave's research has not adequately explored challenges child witnesses face in court.

Part IV discusses the real world of child sexual abuse and outlines reasons why children might deny abuse, including fear, loyalty, and embarrassment. Moreover, young children's recall is deficient, and more direct questions are necessary to tap recognition. These factors both support the limited use of "leading" questions and decrease the likelihood that false allegations will occur when investigators ask such questions.

Part V examines the value judgments underlying the new wave's research. This Part discusses the way in which the new wave positions itself as objective and scientific, thus appearing more credible than the veteran defense experts in child sexual abuse. I argue, however, that the objectivity is more apparent than real and discuss the role of value judgments in recommending investigative methods and in focusing on the possibility (rather than the relative probability) of false allegations of abuse. I conclude that one must recognize the empiri [*1015] cal limitations and value judgments of the new wave in order to evaluate fairly children's sexual abuse allegations.

Certainly, based on what we know, we can "rig" experiments to support our pet theories about children, but this approach does little to further our understanding of actual child witnesses. What it suggests instead is that the biases of researchers rather than the credibility of children should be investigated.

- Stephen J. Ceci et al. n48 Gail Goodman became the researcher-heroine of the child protection movement in the 1980s because her research supported claims that false allegations of abuse rarely, if ever, occur. n49 To lay the groundwork for the new wave of research, Ceci and Bruck critiqued Goodman's work in three ways. First, the new wave faulted Goodman's research on the same grounds that she criticized research before her: a lack of ecological validity. n50 The new wave emphasized that Goodman's work involved interviewers who typically asked leading questions only once, in a single interview, without strong motivations on the part of either the interviewer or the child to report nonevents falsely. n51 Second, the new wave faulted Goodman for selectively interpreting findings to support a favored position. For example, Ceci and Bruck noted that Goodman focused on particular questions that do not show age differences, rather than discussing suggestibility in general, which tends to decrease with age. n52 Third, the new wave criticized Goodman's claim that false affirmation rates to abuse-related questions are surprisingly low among young children: "Ironically, studies by Goodman and her colleagues provide some of [*1016] the most compelling evidence that young children do in fact make false claims about actions, central events, and, even events that could be construed as being sexually abusive." n53

New wave researchers emphasize that their criticism of Goodman's work is not a personal attack. They explain that "there is nothing emotional or ad hominem" in their critique, but rather, "it is the very essence of what scientists consider to be their responsibility: to refute or reanalyze the findings of others." n54 The scientist's goal is to conduct and to interpret research without imposing her own values. n55

The new wave is equally cognizant, however, that value-free interpretation of research is an ideal rather than a reality. Ceci warned that "some of the better known figures in this area of research have exhibited a partisanship that prods them to discuss their findings without making clear the limits and alternate interpretations." n56 Moreover, Ceci co-authored several studies demonstrating that "seemingly objective scientific criteria" may be invoked to criticize proposals "whose real offense might be their social and political distastefulness." n57 Understanding a scientist's value preferences is therefore useful when assessing his scientific critiques.

Unfortunately, explicit acknowledgment of psychologists' values potentially undermines the respect psychology receives (or hopes to receive) as an objective science. Maggie Bruck wrote that testifying as an expert witness in court taught her

what a mistake it is to confuse researchers with research. Although it is easy to do because one comes to represent a "researcher" with a specific point of view, this is a mistake in terms of the profession's applied image. You should try your best in the courtroom not to talk about researchers; rather, you should only talk about studies. n58

What is bad for experimental psychology's "applied image," however, is good for understanding its limits. Indeed, examination of Bruck's testimony in the cases she discusses clearly illustrates the differences in factual assumptions and value preferences among suggestibility researchers.

Bruck criticized at least three different studies in which Goodman collaborated. n59 This Article discusses two here. First, consider a study by Saywitz, Goodman, and their colleagues. n60 The researchers examined seventy-two five- and seven-year-old girls' memories of a pediatric examination. n61 For half of the girls, the examination included genital touch (exterior vaginal and anal examination), and for the other half, the examiner substituted an examination for scoliosis. n62 The study found that, with respect to girls' subsequent recall of genital touch, both false positive and false negative rates varied depending on the manner in which the examiner questioned the girls. When asked free-recall questions about the event either one week or one month afterwards, none of the girls in the scoliosis condition falsely claimed to have been touched in the genital area. n63 Of the girls in the genital touch condition, twenty-two percent (8/36) correctly mentioned vaginal touch, and eleven percent (4/36) correctly mentioned anal touch. n64 Free recall thus elicited no false positives but a substantial number of false negatives. When asked a direct question about genital touch with the aid of an anatomically correct doll (e.g., "Did that doctor touch you there?" while "pointing to the doll's vagina"), n65 2.86% (1/35) of the girls in the scoliosis condition falsely claimed vaginal touch, n66 and 5.56% (2/36) falsely claimed anal touch. n67 Examiners asked the three girls who falsely claimed genital touch follow-up questions, and "two were unable to provide any detail. However, one [* 1018] child in the nongenital condition who said yes to the anal touch question described in further questioning that 'it tickled' and 'the doctor used a long stick.'" n68 Of the girls in the genital condition, eighty-six percent (31/36) acknowledged vaginal touch when directly asked, and sixty-nine percent (25/36) acknowledged anal touch. n69 In comparison to free recall, a direct question elicited some false positives, but reduced the number of false negatives.

In her testimony, Bruck criticized the study on two grounds. First, she contended that "it's a meaningless study. Those kids were questioned in totally unrealistic ways in terms of what goes on in sexual abuse cases." n70 Second, she disagreed with the authors' assessment of the significance of the false affirmations of touching:

There were three children in her study who made incredible claims about being touched. They kind of buried that under the data. I think that those cases are really important because here these children were only interviewed once and three children claimed that they had been touched in the genitals, one child claims that the doctor had shoved something up her hiney. I find that highly significant. She doesn't; I do. n71

In their paper, Saywitz, Goodman, and their colleagues acknowledged that they did not repeatedly interview the children and that children in the nongenital condition "had no motive to distort their reports," thus potentially underestimating the suggestibility of children in forensic interviews. n72 However, they claimed "greater ecological validity" for their study than previous research and believed that their data would be useful to clinicians and legal professionals weighing the costs and benefits of different interviewing strategies. n73 The researchers also acknowledged that a cost-benefit analysis would require one to consider the children who made false allegations of vaginal and anal touch. They argued, however, that "although there is a risk of increased error with doll-aided direct questions, there is an even greater risk that not asking about vaginal and anal touch leaves the majority of such touch unreported." n74

[*1019] Second, consider a study by Goodman and her colleagues which Bruck also discussed in her testimony in the Kelly trial. n75 Fifteen seven- and ten-year-old children were interviewed four years after a five-minute interaction with an unfamiliar male adult. The interviewers created an "atmosphere of accusation" by interrogating the children with suggestive questions and comments (e.g., "You'll feel better once you've told" and "Are you afraid to tell?"), n76 and by asking abuse- related questions (e.g., "Did he do anything that made you feel uncomfortable?" and "He gave you a hug and kissed you, didn't he?"). n77 According to Goodman:

In free recall, few children evidenced memory of the original experience. They made a variety of errors in attempting to recall the event and answer questions. The children did not, however, provide false reports of abuse. All of the children knew their clothes had remained on, they had not been touched in a bad way, they had not been spanked, and they had not been instructed to keep a secret. Some of the children's errors, however, might lead to suspicion of abuse. For example, one child falsely affirmed that she had been given a bath, five children agreed to having been both hugged and kissed, and two children said "yes" when asked if their picture had been taken in the bathtub. Nevertheless, the children were more resistant to abuse-related than to nonabuse-related suggestions. n78

And what was really surprising in this study was that almost a third of the children, in fact, claimed that the following things had happened to them: That they had been hugged or kissed when, in fact, [they] had never been hugged or kissed; that they had been taken into a

bathroom when that never had happened; that they, in fact, had been taken into a bathtub when that never had happened; and one of the children actually claimed to have been given a bath.

Now, this study is quite powerful because it shows how with just very slight manipulations and in one interview situation you can get children who had no memories for an event [to] start to say that certain things happened.

[*1020] And the motivations that are provided in this study are really similar [to] ones that we see in lots of other kinds of cases, such as, the way to keep safe is to tell the bad secret, the way to get rid of bad feelings in my tummy is to tell my mommy, the more I tell the more they won't get me. n79

The prosecutor challenged Brack's interpretation of the study with a quotation from the original report, which argued that "the children were surprisingly accurate in knowing that their clothes had remained on, that they had not been spanked, that they had not been touched in a place where they didn't like it, and that they had not been instructed to keep a secret." n80 Bruck responded by saying

That is straight out of their conclusions .... It does not match very well with their data. This study is a prime example of - a very important example of how researchers can collect certain kinds of data and look at them and report them in ways that are not there.

Gail Goodman is a renowned researcher who has an incredible bias. She collects very important data that consistently shows that young children are suggestible, and yet in terms of who's known in the scientific community, people say Gail Goodman, she's the one who does all the studies to show that children aren't suggestible. n81

Reiterating the results she discussed on direct, Brack continued: "Gail Goodman feels that that's not really very significant. I happen to feel, most scientists happen to feel, most people in forensic psychology or anybody who is involved in a case - court case happen to feel this is really significant." n82

Bruck's testimony exemplifies each of the predominant criticisms of Goodman's work found in Ceci and Bruck's published work. She argued that real-world investigative interviewing is unlike that the Saywitz study used, making its findings meaningless. She also asserted that both the Saywitz and the Goodman studies chose to focus only on aspects of their data, thus concealing the actual findings. Finally, she contended that the research suggests a great danger that false positives will occur, rather than reassuring us about the credibility of children's claims.

The criticisms illustrate the role that psychologists' assumptions about reality and personal standards of proof play in affecting their evaluation of research. In dismissing the Saywitz study as meaningless, the new wave makes a factual claim about the nature of investigative interviewing. Until researchers have adequately canvassed actual in [* 1021 ] terviews for suggestiveness, opinions about real-world interviewing entail subjective judgments based on limited personal experience. In criticizing Goodman's selective focus on particular results, such as low rates of false positives on questions that directly implicate abuse, the new wave challenges Goodman's assumption that children are much less likely to

affirm abusive experiences falsely than other types of experiences. This challenge is a factual claim. Even if supported by research, however, the claim leaves room for disagreement among researchers regarding whether research that does not examine allegations of abuse is nevertheless useful in assessing the suggestibility of children in abuse cases. Finally, the new wave argues that the magnitude of errors in Goodman's research is shockingly high, rather than reassuringly low, thereby expressing a value judgment regarding how many false allegations we are willing to accept in order to identify true cases of abuse. This Article takes up each of these points in the review of the new wave's research that follows.

When legal commentators discuss the work of the new wave, they tend to accept its conclusions at face value n83 in much the same way that legal commentators eagerly touted earlier work on suggestibility purporting to prove that children are not suggestible. n84 This is a mistake. In her testimony in the Kelly case, Bruck warned the prosecutor that "you can't look at the conclusions. You have to look at the data." n85 Conclusions are a product of the results and the subjective impressions of the researcher. To go one step further, one must remember that researchers' assumptions about the world and their value preferences also affect the design of the research. Although the rigors of the scientific method often thwart even the cleverest researchers and the most brilliant hypotheses, one should recall Ceci's admonishment that researchers "can 'rig' experiments to support [their] pet theories about children." n86

The new wave has produced dozens of studies in the past few years, including four studies that are particularly noteworthy.

In Leichtman and Ceci's Sam Stone Study, research assistants visited preschool children once a week for four weeks and told them about twelve incidents involving a clumsy fellow named Sam Stone. n87 Subsequently, Sam Stone visited the classroom while the children were hearing a story. He was introduced to the children, commented on the story, and walked around the perimeter of the classroom. He then departed, having stayed a total of approximately two minutes. n88 Following Sam Stone's visit, researchers interviewed the children four times over a four-week period. In the last three interviews, children were provided with "erroneous suggestions ... that Sam Stone had ripped a book [and] ... soiled a teddy bear." n89 For example, in the second interview, interviewers asked the children "Did Sam Stone rip the book with his hands, or did he use scissors?" n90

Approximately ten weeks after Sam Stone's visit, a new interviewer questioned the children. The interviewer first asked a "free- narrative" question: "Remember the day that Sam Stone came to your classroom? Well, I wasn't there that day, and I'd like you to tell me everything that happened when he visited." n91 If the child did not specifically refer to a book being ripped or a teddy bear being soiled, she was asked "probe" questions: "I heard something about a book. Do you know anything about that?" and "I heard something about a teddy bear. Do you know anything about that?" n92 Forty-six percent of the three- and four-year-old children spontaneously reported that Sam Stone had performed one or both

misdeeds in response to the free narrative question; seventy-two percent did so in response to probe questions. n93

What was most surprising about these children's reports was the number of false perceptual details, as well as nonverbal gestures, that they provided to embellish their stories of these nonevents. For example, children used their hands to show how Sam had purportedly thrown the teddy bear up in the air; some children reported seeing Sam in the playground, on his way to the store to buy chocolate ice cream, or in the bathroom soaking the teddy bear in water before smearing it with a crayon. n94

In Bruck, Ceci, Francoeur, and Barr's Inoculation Study, a pediatrician gave four- and five-year-old children a routine medical examination. n95 After the examination, a research assistant greeted the children and spoke to them about a poster on the wall for several minutes. The research assistant stayed during the pediatrician's administration of the oral vaccine and the inoculation and then took the child to another room where she gave them treats and read them a story. n96

Approximately eleven months after their visit to the pediatrician, researchers interviewed the children four times over a two-week period. n97 In the first three interviews, researchers gave the children false information about their visit. The interviewer minimized how much the inoculation had hurt and how much the children had cried. n98 In addition, the interviewer told the children that the research assistant had given them their oral vaccine and inoculation, and that the pediatrician had shown them the poster, given them the treats, and read them the story. n99 In the fourth interview, researchers asked the children to recall everything that happened on their visit to the pediatrician's and directly asked who had performed the various actions during their visit (if the children had not already volunteered such information). nlOO

In the fourth interview, the children reported significantly less pain and crying than a control group of children. About thirty percent to forty percent of the children falsely reported that the research assistant had given them their shot, the oral vaccine, and the checkup, and that the pediatrician had shown them the poster, given them treats, and read them a story. nlOl The authors concluded, "these results challenge the view that suggestibility effects are confined to peripheral, neutral, and non-meaningful events." nl02

In Ceci, Crotteau Huffman, and Smith's Mousetrap Study, researchers interviewed preschool children about various events, only some of which had occurred, seven to ten times over a period of ten [*1024] weeks. nl03 One of the fictitious events concerned getting one's hand caught in a mousetrap and having to go to the hospital. The experimenter held cards on which the events were written and told the child that only some of the events had occurred and that the child should "think real hard" and decide whether each event had really

happened or not. nl04 At the end of ten weeks, a new interviewer asked the children whether the events had ever occurred, nl 05

Fifty-eight percent of the children produced false narratives to at least one of the fictitious events, and twenty-five percent falsely affirmed that most of them had occurred, nl 06 Many children were able to provide compelling narrative accounts of the nonexistent events. For example:

"My daddy, mommy, and my brother [took me to the hospital] in our van.... The hospital gave me a little bandage, and it was right here [pointing to index finger] .... I was looking and then I didn't see what I was doing and it [finger] got in there somehow.... The mousetrap was in our house because there's a mouse in our house .... The mousetrap is down in the basement, next to the firewood .... I was playing a game called 'operation' and then I went downstairs and said to Dad, 'I want to eat lunch,' and then it got stuck in the mousetrap .... My daddy was down in the basement collecting firewood .... [My brother] pushed me [into the mousetrap]; he grabbed Blow Torch [an action figure]. It happened yesterday. The mouse was in my house yesterday. I caught my finger in it yesterday. I went to the hospital yesterday." nl07

In Bruck, Hembrooke, and Ceci's Monkey-Thief Study, researchers interviewed sixteen preschool children on five occasions about four events: two true events and two false events. nl08 One of each type of event was a positive event, and one was a negative event. The false- positive event involved helping a woman find her lost monkey, whereas the false negative involved witnessing a man come to the daycare and steal food. In the first interview, the researcher simply asked the children whether the events had occurred. In the second and third interviews, the interviewers used a combination of suggestive [*1025] techniques that included "peer pressure, visualization techniques, repeating misinformation, and selective reinforcement." n 109 If the children stated that an event had occurred, the interviewer asked open- ended and closed-ended questions about the event. If the children denied that the event had occurred, the interviewer asked them to pretend that it had and asked the same questions. On the fourth interview, the researcher asked the children to tell their stories to a puppet. Again, if the children denied that an event had occurred, the researcher asked them to pretend. On the fifth interview, a new interviewer asked an open-ended question about the events (e.g., "I heard something about a lost monkey. Do you know anything about that?"). nllO The study found that "by the third interview, most children had assented to all true and false events. This pattern continued to the end of the experiment." nl 11

These studies undercut sanguine assumptions that children are not unduly suggestible. In each of these studies, a substantial number of children falsely affirmed that nonexistent events had occurred. These false reports often occurred spontaneously, in response to a request for free narrative. Moreover, children frequently elaborated on their false reports, even going beyond the information previous interviewers had suggested. Finally, the false reports often concerned events in which the children both participated and were harmed. The results thus challenge the shibboleths of previous research on children's suggestibility: false

reports occur rarely and only in response to highly misleading questions; nl 12 false reports tend to be unelaborated, single-word responses; nll3 false reports are unlikely when the child is reporting a negative event that involves the child's body, nl 14

[*1026] On the other hand, the new wave studies establish only that researchers can produce false allegations and do not enable others to estimate how often such allegations are occurring under current interviewing practices. To make such a judgment, one must understand how investigators actually conduct these interviews in the real world. Such an understanding leads to the conclusion that the new wave research may overstate children's suggestibility in actual practice. Moreover, the new wave ignores a number of important variables in their criticism of interviewing practices. These variables decrease the likelihood of false allegations of sexual abuse and in some cases justify the use of interviewing practices the new wave criticizes.

To determine the practical relevance of new-wave research, one needs to know the extent to which interviewers do in fact use the suggestive techniques the new wave examines. Noting that the interviewing strategies have negative effects or even that some interviewers have used the techniques is not sufficient. In many situations, legislators and courts must make decisions based on the way investigators typically conduct interviews. If interviews are usually suggestive, then one fairly can presume that the interviews in a particular case were suggestive. A presumption that interviews are suggestive affects legislative decision making regarding the admissibility of children's statements and judicial decision making regarding whether to admit evidence in particular cases. Moreover, such a presumption justifies the use of expert testimony to review the results of the new wave's research findings.

Presumptions may reflect the relative weights one assigns to the two types of error: (1) an erroneous assumption that the interviewing technique was not suggestive and (2) an erroneous assumption that the interviewing was suggestive. However, unless one believes that any risk of one type of error trumps the other type of error, no matter what its magnitude, one must establish what interviews are actually like in order to make an informed value judgment regarding the suggestiveness of child interviewing.

Information regarding what typically occurs in interviews might seem irrelevant with respect to individual cases. Obviously, if one knows whether a particular child was interviewed with suggestive techniques, then one need not ask what most interviews are like. However, how interviewers conducted interviews is largely unknown in many, if not most, cases. Although many jurisdictions require videotaping or taping of investigatory interviews, most do not. Further [*1027] more, it would be impractical to impose a requirement that individuals record the first contact with the child giving rise to a suspicion of abuse because such contact arises between children and parents or teachers, rather than during a formal abuse investigation. Documentation, when it occurs, often fails to provide verbatim information regarding the child's disclosures, and interviewers may be unable to recall the exact wording of their questions. In sum, to make judgments in individual cases, courts often must make assumptions about how interviewers typically interview children. Furthermore, experts who testify about suggestive methods of questioning cannot be sure whether the

research they discuss is relevant to the particular case, especially if they take Ceci and Bruck's advice that they should learn very little about the case (save the child's age) to remain impartial. nll5

At first glance, the new wave makes claims about the nature of interviewing in general when criticizing various interviewing techniques as unduly suggestive. Discussing the ecological validity of their research, Ceci and Bruck argued that

the major differences between suggestive interviews in laboratory studies and suggestive interviews in actual cases is that the former are generally less intense and contain fewer suggestive elements than the latter.... This leads to the conclusion that if experiments were more like real-life cases we would elicit many more false reports from children than we have done to date .... nll6

Differences between the new wave and Goodman and her colleagues may derive more from differing assumptions about what inter [*1028] views are like than from differing beliefs about children's vulnerability. Saywitz, Goodman, and their colleagues believed that their interviews of girls examined by pediatricians nll7 were "ecologically valid" in that they replicated actual child abuse interviews, whereas Bruck dismissed the study as "meaningless" because the interviews were totally unlike those in the real world, nl 18 Goodman, Rudy, Bottoms, and Am an argued that anyone who asked questions as leading as those in her own studies "would likely face severe criticism from the accused that the child was led into making a false accusation. Child abuse charges have often been dismissed by judges on this ground." nl 19 In contrast, Ceci and Bruck criticized what may have been Goodman's most extreme manipulation: the study in which the researchers created an "atmosphere of accusation" by telling the children interviewers would question them about an important event and by saying things like "Are you afraid to tell?" and "You'll feel better once you've told." Ceci and Bruck claimed that "the typical forensic case would have involved multiple prior attempts to create an 'atmosphere of accusation,' not just a single one several years after an event." nl20

When pressed, however, the new wave hedges on the position that the typical interview is in fact anything like those used in their research. In the Kelly case, Bruck testified on direct examination that even the most careful of interviewers will lapse into suggestiveness, nl21 and in the Sterling case, Bruck stated on cross examination that her descriptions of suggestive techniques were "typical." nl22 As the subsequent questioning made clear, however, she based her views of what constitutes typical interviewing on transcripts that professionals, primarily defense attorneys, had sent to her over the years. nl23

[*1029] These transcripts also provide the basis for Ceci and Bruck's book, in which they warned the reader that "the materials we have reviewed may not be representative of many of the interviews carried out with children in forensic or therapeutic situations." nl24 These transcripts came to the authors' attention "because they contained components that might be considered to be suggestive"; nl25 therefore, one can fairly assume that nonsuggestive interviews were underrepresented.

Moreover, the review of the transcripts was not "scientific," nl26 and the suggestive elements were not quantified. nl27 Bruck looked through the transcripts informally to determine if suggestive techniques were present. nl28 At best, the review process made it

impossible to determine if those interviews that do contain, for example, stereotype induction, do so in any substantial way. At worst, one wonders whether the authors' own expectations exerted an influence on their interpretation. As Ceci and Bruck warned:

Expectations and biases affect how situations are encoded and subsequently remembered. Generally, expectancy-consistent results are more likely to be remembered: The number of confirming cases are overestimated, and these confirming cases are more easily recalled. Prior expectations (or biases) may also work on incongruent information in such a way as to transform it so that it fits into one's existing beliefs. nl29

The problems of unsystematic review of interviews are apparent when one reads that in 1994 Ceci found "potentially suggestive and stereotype inducing" methods in one-third of the cases he reviewed, nl30 whereas in 1995 Ceci and his colleagues found "highly improper interviewing techniques" in the "vast majority of cases" they reviewed. nl31 One cannot determine whether interviews grew worse, the interviews the authors received grew worse, or the criteria forjudging the interviews changed.

Ultimately, the new wave cited some systematic research on interviewing, discussed below, but simultaneously refused to "endorse any specific prevalence rate of poor interviews." Instead, the new wave [* 1030] took the position that there are "many" improper interviews, and "whether these represent a substantial portion or only a tiny portion of all cases is anyone's guess." nl32 Ceci most recently has expressed the "hunch ... mat the majority of interviews done with kids by front-line workers, child-protective service, law enforcement, therapists, pediatricians, are well-done." nl33 The position that "many" interviews are improperly suggestive emphasizes the possibility rather than the relative probability of false positives. If the mere existence of bad interviews presents a sufficient ground for policymaking, the implicit value judgment is that no false positives are tolerable.

Questions regarding the representativeness of the case studies that the new wave used to illustrate the dangers of interviewing techniques relate to concerns over the representativeness of the interviewing techniques the new wave criticized. Ceci and Bruck warned that "most of the actual sexual abuse cases that we describe are day-care cases in which some of the children make allegations of ritualistic abuse at the hands of their caregivers." nl34 Besides the Salem Witch trials, the authors described six contemporary cases of sexual abuse, four of which involved allegations by large numbers of preschool children in day care. nl35 They acknowledged that these cases "represent only a small subset of the actual sexual abuse cases." nl36 Nevertheless, they used these cases as '"windows'" through which one can understand the problems of child sexual abuse allegations. nl37

Ceci and Bruck defended their emphasis on day-care cases (which involve multiple preschool children alleging ritualistic abuse) on at least three grounds. First, they argued that "although these cases represent only a small proportion of sexual abuse complaints, in absolute numbers they involve a large number of children (in the Mc [*1031] Martin case, for instance, interviewers under contract to the State of California alleged the abuse of 369 children)" nl38 and "in other day- care cases the number of allegations is also quite large."

nl39 However, the McMartin case is hardly representative of day-care cases. As Finkelhor's study of day-care abuse emphasized:

One clear-cut way in which the McMartin Preschool case was atypical of day-care abuse was in the enormous number of children involved. Investigators estimated the number of victimized children at more than 300, spanning a period of at least 10 years. By contrast, the majority of other day-care abuse cases involved the substantiated abuse of only one or two children. nl40

Moreover, if our concern is that a large number of defendants are falsely accused, we should focus on the number of cases in which multiple victims testified. Eighty-five percent of criminal sexual abuse cases involve only a single victim. nl41

Second, Ceci and Bruck asserted that "day-care cases are relevant to the more general testimonial issues found in many nonday-care cases (i.e., repeated suggestive questioning, interviewer stereotypes, failure to test alternative hypotheses)." nl42 However, consider how the dynamics of an abuse investigation change when one compares multivictim cases with single-victim cases. Interviewers who are confident that the children have suffered abuse are more likely to question extensively a child in a multivictim case than in a single-victim case. Likewise, interviewers are more likely to confront a child with the statements of other children alleging abuse in multivictim cases. Interviewers in multivictim cases also are more likely to "assure" a child at the beginning of questioning that the accused is a bad person who has hurt children and who has been put in jail. In a single-victim case, the investigator will question the child because a specific suspicion exists that the child has * suffered abuse. If the child is the only victim, contamination by other victims is obviously impossible. Until the [*1032] child acknowledges some abuse, it is unlikely that the accused will be labelled a criminal.

Other differences exist between day-care cases and typical sexual abuse cases that make the likelihood of suggestive questioning greater in the day-care cases. Most sexual abuse cases involve abuse by someone close to the child - typically a family member or friend of the family. nl43 Parents are unlikely to pursue the hypothesis that a spouse or a brother has abused their child. Furthermore, interviewers are not likely to paint negative stereotypes of those with whom the child may wish to maintain an ongoing relationship. Surely, some cases arise in which negative stereotyping occurs, nl44 but in most cases those close to the child are not eager to believe that someone has abused the child. nl45 The median age of a sexual abuse victim in criminal court is thirteen years of age, nl46 while the day-care cases predominantly involved preschool children. As I will argue below, these and other differences also mean that children will be less suggestible in the truly "typical" case of sexual abuse.

The final justification the new wave gave for emphasizing day-care cases is that, "because of their visibility, day-care cases are often more extensively documented." nl47 Cases journalists and legal scholars have brought to public attention receive the best documentation and tend to be those which "cast doubt on the accuracy of children's statements." nl48 A scientific study of children's suggestibility that focuses on highly visible cases, however, is much like a report on airline safety that focuses on air disasters. Coverage of air disasters likely leads the public to overstate vastly the dangers of air travel;

nl49 coverage of dubi [*1033] ous child sex abuse cases surely will have a similar effect. At the same time, the media's emphasis on bizarre, facially implausible allegations falsely assures the public that society will not miss true cases of abuse and creates the perception that reining in interviewers poses no potential risks. Analogies to the Salem Witch trials nl50 have the same effect. The public need not fear that increased skepticism will give witches free rein to practice their craft.

In their most recent paper, Bruck, Ceci, and Hembrooke discuss a number of "suggestive interviewing techniques," including leading questions, stereotype inducement, selective reinforcement, guided imagery, and peer pressure. nl51 To "dispute [the] claim" that "the interviewing conditions used in the suggestibility studies are rarely used by professionals," nl52 the authors cite several studies on real-world interviewing that allegedly support the ecological validity of their research.

The studies do not indicate, however, that stereotype inducement or selective reinforcement is common. The studies do not measure these tactics. Nor do they document extensive use of peer pressure or guided imagery. Indeed, the research suggests that the latter two sources of suggestibility are uncommon. Warren and colleagues examined the extent to which an interviewer told a child that another person had said the child was abused - a method which could constitute peer (or adult) pressure. Interviewers employed this tactic three times out of forty-two interviews. nl53 Boat and Everson examined the [*1034] extent to which interviewers using dolls asked the child to show how abuse might have occurred nl54 - a method which could be similar to guided imagery. nl55 Interviewers never employed this tactic in ninety- seven interviews, nl 56

The research, however, does document infrequent use of open- ended questions with alleged child abuse victims. Bruck and her colleagues summarized the observational research on real-world interviews and concluded that "interviewers mainly relied on specific or leading questions; several times during the interviews, they introduced information that the children had not volunteered, and they frequently repeated that new information in the course of a single interview." nl57 The authors rely primarily on work by Amye Warren and colleagues, and Michael Lamb and colleagues, nl 58

Warren and her colleagues examined transcripts of interviews conducted in the late 1980s and early 1990s by child protective services workers in a southern state. nl59 They found that nearly ninety percent of the questions asked by interviewers constituted "specific" questions because they did not require a narrative response. nl60 Noting that "questions containing previously undisclosed information may be considered leading questions," nl61 the authors found that interviewers introduced, on average, seven pieces of new information per interview nl62 and, again on average, repeated the new information once during the interview. nl63 Examples of interviewers providing new information included stating the following: where the child currently lives, names of people the child knows, what the child's mother has [*1035] done, and the fact that the child has spoken to the interviewer before. nl64 As a worst-case example of providing new abuse details, Warren and colleagues quote an interviewer who reminded the child what she previously had told the interviewer about abuse. nl65