Term Paper

Addressing the Negative Effect of Cross-Examination Questioning on Children's Accuracy: Can We Intervene?

Author(s): Saskia Righarts, Sarah O'Neill and Rachel Zajac

Source: Law and Human Behavior , October 2013, Vol. 37, No. 5 (October 2013), pp. 354- 365

Published by: Springer on behalf of American Psychology-Law Society (AP-LS)

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Law and Human Behavior © 2013 American Psychological Association 2013, Vol. 37, No. 5, 354-365 0147-7307/13/$ 12.00 DOI: 10.1037/lhb0000042

Addressing the Negative Effect of Cross-Examination Questioning on Children's Accuracy: Can We Intervene?

Saskia Righarts, Sarah O'Neill, and Rachel Zajac University of Otago

This study investigated whether preinterview interventions could help to facilitate children's accuracy under cross-examination-style questioning. Five- and 6-year-olds (n = 77; mean [SD] age = 5.84 [0.48] years; 57% boys) and 9- and 10-year-olds (n = 87; mean [SD] age = 10.30 [0.54] years; 56% boys) took part in a staged event and were then interviewed with analogues of direct examination and cross- examination. In a pilot study, we ascertained that a brief verbal warning about the nature of cross- examination - given immediately prior to the cross-examination interview - did not influence children's cross-examination accuracy, regardless of whether it was delivered by an unfamiliar interviewer or the cross-examining interviewer. In the main experiment, some children participated in a brief intervention

involving practice and feedback with cross-examination questions. Relative to control children, those who underwent this preparation intervention made fewer changes to their direct-examination responses under cross-examination, changed a smaller proportion of their correct responses, and obtained higher ultimate accuracy levels. These findings provide some support for the notion that pretrial interventions, if sufficiently comprehensive, could help children to maintain accuracy during cross-examination.

Keywords: cross-examination, pretrial preparation, children's testimony, suggestibility

Cross-examination is a fundamental part of the adversarial legal system but is often viewed as aggressive and intimidating relative to the other components of the investigative process (Brodsky, 2004). As such, many have argued that cross-examination is un- acceptably distressing for child witnesses (Davies, Henderson, & Seymour, 1997; Eastwood & Patton, 2002; Westcott & Page, 2002). Additionally, recent research has raised the concern that the questions asked during cross-examination may be difficult for children to answer correctly. Here, we investigate an intervention aimed at helping children to maintain accuracy in the face of this unique form of questioning.

The Effect of Cross-Examination on Children's

Reports

Cross-examination directly contravenes almost every principle that has been established for eliciting accurate evidence from

Saskia Righarts, Sarah O'Neill, and Rachel Zajac, Department of Psy- chology, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.

Saskia Righarts is now at the Faulty of Law, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.

Sarah O'Neill is now at the Psychology Department, Queens College of the City University of New York.

Funding for this study was provided by the Marsden Fund Council (from government funding administered by the Royal Society of New Zealand) and by the University of Otago. The authors gratefully acknowledge the invaluable assistance of Constable Mark Davies, who ran the memory events. The authors also thank the children who participated in this re- search, along with their parents and teachers.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Rachel Zajac, Department of Psychology, University of Otago, P.O. Box 56, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand. E-mail: rachelz@psy.otago.ac.nz

children (Henderson, 2002), in that the questions posed are fre- quently leading, complex or confusing, and confrontational (Bren- nan & Brennan, 1988; Davies & Seymour, 1998; Walker, 1993; Zajac, Gross, & Hayne, 2003). Many have argued that these questions represent a deliberate strategy to confuse and intimidate witnesses while shaping their testimony (Cossins, 2009; Davies et al., 1997; Henderson, 2002).

Not surprisingly, then, child witnesses consistently describe cross-examination as both distressing and confusing (Eastwood & Patton, 2002; Prior, Glaser, & Lynch, 1997; Wade, 2002); many cite it as the most traumatic experience they faced during the investigative process (Eastwood & Patton, 2002). Furthermore, trial transcripts suggest that children experience considerable dif- ficulty answering cross-examination questions. In fact, they make numerous changes to their earlier testimony, and they sometimes retract their allegations altogether (Zajac & Cannan, 2009; Zajac et al., 2003).

To ascertain how these changes affect accuracy, it is necessary to take cross-examination into the laboratory. In the standard cross-examination paradigm developed by Zajac and Hayne (2003), children experience a novel event and are then interviewed with analogues of direct examination and cross-examination. Dur- ing the cross-examination interview, the interviewer uses a variety of ecologically valid challenges to persuade children to change their direct-examination responses, regardless of accuracy (e.g., "I think someone just told you to say that. That's what really hap- pened, isn't it?"). These challenges were derived from actual court transcripts (see Zajac & Cannan, 2009, Zajac et al., 2003, and Zajac, O'Neill, & Hayne, 2012, for examples) or common chal- lenges made to children's reports by parents and teachers. As in the courtroom, children make numerous changes to their earlier re- ports when interviewed in this way. Some of these changes reflect corrections of earlier mistakes, but many are directed away from

354

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NEGATIVE EFFECT OF CROSS-EXAMINATION 355

the truth. The net effect of cross-examination questioning on children's accuracy is negative (Zajac & Hayne, 2003, 2006; Zajac, Jury, & O'Neill, 2009), raising concerns about cross- examination as a truth-finding mechanism.

Although it is tempting to attribute children's poor cross- examination performance to the veracity of their memory for the event in question, three recent findings suggest otherwise. First, children perform poorly even when cross-examination takes place before forgetting is likely to have occurred (Righarts, Jack, Hayne, & Zajac, 2012). Second, the majority of changes that children make during cross-examination questioning are not maintained in a subsequent neutral interview (Righarts et al., 2012). Finally, cross-examination is particularly detrimental when children ex- hibit low self-confidence, self-esteem, and assertiveness (Zajac et al., 2009). Taken together, these findings suggest that social fac- tors play a significant role in driving the negative effects of cross-examination and raise the question of whether we can inter- vene.

Preparing Children for Cross-Examination

Existing court preparation programs typically focus on famil- iarizing children with their role as a witness, with the ultimate goal of reducing anxiety (Copen & Pucci, 2000; Cunningham & Hur- ley, 2007; Davies, Devere, & Verbitsky, 2004; Morgan Libeau, Woodham, & Rickard, 2003). These programs tend to be well thought of by both children and the professionals who work with them (Davies et al., 2004; Doueck, Weston, Filbert, Beekhuis, & Redlich, 1997), but we do not know the extent to which they facilitate accuracy in the courtroom.

Furthermore, studies have yet to investigate the feasibility of interventions directly designed to improve children's capacity to answer cross-examination questions. Several researchers have, however, attempted to improve children's ability to resist sugges- tion (Beuscher & Roebers, 2005; Ellis, Powell, Thomson, & Jones, 2003; Endres, Poggenpohl, & Erben, 1999; Memon & Vartoukian, 1996; Warren, Hulse-Trotter, & Tubbs, 1991). Many of these interventions have involved warning children about some of the difficulties they might encounter during questioning, and encour- aging appropriate responding. For example, children might be encouraged to say "I don't know" when they are unsure of the answer to a question. Unfortunately, although this strategy appears to help children respond more accurately to misleading questions (e.g., Mulder & Vrij, 1996; Nesbitt & Markham, 1999; but see Ellis et al., 2003; Memon & Vartoukian, 1996; Poole & Lindsay, 1995), this benefit can come at a cost - children often utilize the

strategy even when they can answer a question (Gee, Gregory, & Pipe, 1999; Mulder & Vrij, 1996; Nesbitt & Markham, 1999; Saywitz & Moan-Hardie, 1994).

Another method aimed at reducing susceptibility to suggestion has been to explicitly warn participants that they might have been exposed to incorrect information prior to the interview. Although early research in this area focused on adults (e.g., Christiaansen & Ochalek, 1983; Greene, Flynn, & Loftus, 1982), these types of warnings have also proved successful with children (e.g., Lindsay, Gonzales, & Eso, 1995). Research has also demonstrated that verbal warnings about the difficult nature of a future interview could help children to resist misleading questions (e.g., Chambers & Zaragoza, 2001; Endres et al., 1999; Warren et al., 1991; but see

Beuscher & Roebers, 2005). In Warren et al. 's (1991) study, for example, children answered misleading questions more accurately when they were warned that the questions might be tricky and told only to attempt questions they could answer.

Could similar warnings reduce the negative effect of cross- examination on the accuracy of children's reports? This seems unlikely for two reasons. First, not all warning interventions aimed at children have yielded positive effects (e.g., see Beuscher & Roebers, 2005), and any significant effects have typically been small. Second, the cross-examination interview not only comprises suggestive questions but also credibility-challenging questions, in which children face considerable pressure to comply with the interviewer. The efficacy of verbal warnings does not tend to extend beyond simple suggestive or complex questions to situa- tions involving a high degree of social pressure. Warren and colleagues (1991), for example, found that although their warning reduced children's propensity to succumb to misleading questions on the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale (i.e., yield scores), it did not reduce children's tendency to change their responses when given negative feedback (i.e., shift scores).

In line with these issues, we carried out a pilot study to inves- tigate effect of verbal warnings on children's cross-examination accuracy. Five- and 6-year-old children (n = 59 ; M = 5.90 years, SD = 0.60) and 9- and 10-year-old children (n = 62; M = 9.87 years, SD = 0.61) participated in a surprise trip to their local police station and were subsequently interviewed in styles mimicking direct examination and cross-examination (see Zajac & Hayne, 2003, 2006). Children were randomly assigned to one of three warning conditions: a prior warning group, a concurrent warning group, or a no warning control group. The verbal warning took place prior to the cross-examination interview; children were told

that the cross-examining interviewer had not been on the police station trip, that the cross-examination questions might be tricky, and that it was okay to tell the interviewer if she had made a mistake. Children in the prior warning group received this warning from an unfamiliar experimenter immediately prior to cross- examination, thereby mimicking a warning from a neutral third party (e.g., a judge). Children in the concurrent warning condition received the warning directly from the cross-examination inter- viewer. With the exception of the concurrent warning condition, the cross-examining interviewer was blind to warning condition. A 3 (warning condition) X 2 (age) ANCOVA controlling for direct- examination accuracy showed a significant effect of age, F(l, 114) = 27.02, p < .0001, d = 0.97, 95% CI [0.61, 1.33] (for details on calculating effect sizes see Wuensch, 2012), such that older children (M = 5.71, SE = .26) obtained higher cross- examination scores than younger children (. M = 3.74, SE = .27). No difference in children's cross-examination accuracy as a func- tion of warning condition emerged, p = .84, Tļp = .003, and there was no significant Age X Warning Condition interaction, p = .23, •n! = .03.

These findings are consistent with research in the suggestibility literature: Mild verbal warnings (i.e., simply telling children about

question difficulty and reminding them that it is okay to tell the interviewer if he or she makes a mistake) appear to be insufficient to promote accuracy. With this in mind, how can these interven- tions be adapted to improve their effectiveness?

Converging evidence from several research groups suggests that more elaborate interventions - perhaps incorporating explanations

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356 RIGHARTS, O'NEILL, AND ZAJAC

about difficult concepts, hypothetical case vignettes, practice at complex questions, and/or feedback on responses - could all help to improve response accuracy during a final interview (Gee et al., 1999; Huffman, Warren, & Larson, 1999; London & Nunez, 2002;

Lyon, Malloy, Quas, & Tal war, 2008; Peters & Nunez, 1999; Saywitz & Moan-Hardie, 1994; Saywitz, Snyder, & Nathanson, 1999). Gee et al. (1999), for example, gave some of their 9- to 13-year-olds a practice-feedback session in the intervening period between visiting a science center and being questioned about it. During the session, children were instructed not to guess a re- sponse and to say "I don't know" if they did not know an answer. They were then given practice at answering questions unrelated to

the science center trip (e.g., "What's my cat's name?"). If their response was appropriate, they were praised by the interviewer; if it was not, they were reminded not to guess and were asked the question again. During a subsequent interview, children in the practice condition responded to misleading questions more accu- rately than control children.

Younger children's ability to answer complex questions can also be improved through more elaborate preparation interventions. Saywitz et al. (1999) had 6- and 8-year-old children take part in a novel classroom event that included a craft activity. Partway through the craft activity, an argument occurred between confed- erates about the craft materials. Following the event, children were

randomly assigned to one of three intervention conditions. Some children were told to ask the interviewer to rephrase questions they did not understand. Others received motivating instructions to do their best. Another group was given comprehension monitoring training (CMT) - that is, they were taught how to identify ques- tions they did not understand and to hold out their hand and say "stop" when such a question was asked. All children then watched a video and were subsequently asked questions about its content so that they could practice their newly learned skills. During a sub- sequent interview about the original event, children in the CMT condition answered complex questions more accurately, gave fewer incorrect responses, and gave fewer "don't know" responses than children in either of the other two conditions.

The Present Study

Taken together, the research findings discussed here suggest that

interventions comprising either practice and feedback or extended discussion of ground rules are likely to be more beneficial to the accuracy of children's eyewitness testimony than simply warning children about aspects of an upcoming interview. Taking this approach to cross-examination, we asked whether we could im- prove children's cross-examination performance by giving them practice at answering the types of questions often asked during this process, and giving them feedback on their responses.

To answer this question, 5- and 6-year-old and 9- and 10-year- old children went on a surprise trip to the police station and were subsequently interviewed in a style mimicking direct examination.

On average, 10 days later, children completed a cross-examination interview designed to challenge their earlier responses. Prior to this interview, half of the children were given practice answering cross-examination style questions about an unrelated event and feedback on their responses. The remaining children completed a filler task that controlled for the time spent with the interviewer.

We had two main hypotheses. First, based on previous literature (O'Neill & Zajac, 2012; Zajac & Hayne, 2006), we expected that older children's cross-examination performance would be better than that of younger children. Second, we expected that, irrespec- tive of age, children who received the preparation intervention would obtain higher accuracy scores during the cross-examination interview than children in the control group.

Method

Participants

Five- and 6-year-old children ( n = 77; M = 5.84 years, SD = 0.48 years; 57% boys) and 9- and 10-year-old children (n = 87; M = 10.30, SD = 0.54 years; 56% boys) were recruited from two schools in Otago, New Zealand. The children were predominantly New Zealanders of European descent (reflective of the population from which the sample was recruited) and came from lower to middle-income socioeconomic backgrounds. This study was ap- proved by the Human Subjects Ethics committee of the institution at which the research was conducted. Parents signed consent forms

allowing their children to participate. Children were able to termi- nate the interviews at any time.

Experimental Procedure

We employed the same basic experimental paradigm (i.e., mem- ory event, direct-examination interview, cross-examination inter- view) used in Zajac and Hayne' s (2003, 2006) work.

Memory event. During school hours, class groups of children were taken on a surprise hour-long visit to the police station. While there, a police officer showed children the fingerprinting equip- ment and they had their right thumbprint taken. Children then had their "mug shots" taken and were shown a jail cell. Next, the policeman took the children outside to see a police car and sur- prised them by turning on the lights and siren. Finally, the police- man spun each child around by the shoulders to turn him or her into an "honorary police person." The children were then taken back to school, where each child was given a police badge with his or her name on it. Teachers were requested not to discuss the event in class.

Direct-examination interview. One to 5 days ( M = 1.55 days, SD = 1.19 days) after the memory event, an unfamiliar interviewer questioned all children about what happened at the police station. During this interview, children were asked yes-no questions about whether two true events (getting their photos taken and being spun around by the policeman) and two false events (getting to try on handcuffs and seeing a lady come in and report that her child's bike had been stolen) occurred. At the conclusion of the interview, the child was thanked and sent back to class with instructions not to talk about the interview with his or her class- mates. The direct-examination interview was recorded.

Cross-examination interview. Following the direct- examination interview, all children were interviewed with a stan-

dardized analogue of cross-examination. The mean delay between these two interviews was 10.12 days (SD = A. 91). Attempts were made to interview children as soon as possible after the direct examination had taken place; unfortunately, scheduling conflicts at

participating schools meant that there was some variability in

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NEGATIVE EFFECT OF CROSS-EXAMINATION 357

when the interviews were carried out. All cross-examination in-

terviews were conducted by another unfamiliar experimenter who

was blind to experimental condition. The interview began with the following statement:

[Last week/month] a lady came and asked you questions about the police station. Do you remember that? I'm going to show you the video of you talking to that lady. You need to watch and listen really

closely, and then I'm going to ask you some more questions.

At the end of the video, each child was asked a set of 10

questions about each of the four topics discussed during the direct-examination interview (see Appendix A). The aim of each set of 10 cross-examination questions was to persuade the child to reverse his or her original response. For example, if, during the direct-examination interview, a child had said that his or her photo

was taken, the aim of cross-examination was for the child to say that this did not happen or may not have happened. To achieve this

goal, each set of 10 questions began by confirming the child's direct-examination response (e.g., "In the video, you said that you got your photo taken, didn't you?"). Questions 2 to 7 were not designed to get children to retract their original response, but included the types of questions common to cross-examination (e.g., complex, ambiguous, irrelevant, leading, and closed ques- tions; see Zajac et al., 2003). Question 8 asked children whether they were sure of their direct-examination response. On Question 9, the interviewer directly challenged the child's direct- examination response, using one of eight reasons for disbelief (e.g., "I don't think that you really got your photo taken, I think that someone just told you to say that. That's what really hap- pened, isn't it?). If the child did not acquiesce to Question 9, Question 10 was used in an attempt to get the child to admit that he or she could be wrong (e.g., "But that might be the case, don't you think?"; see Zajac & Hayne, 2003, 2006; Zajac et al., 2009, for further detail on the questioning protocol).

Throughout the interview, the experimenter maintained a pleas-

ant, but professional, manner with the child. At the end of ques- tioning, the child was thanked for his or her participation and given

two brightly colored stickers. If the child had appeared at all uncomfortable during the interview, the experimenter made a comment such as, 'That's all the questions I have for you. Some of them were pretty tricky questions, weren't they? You did really well answering them." The child was then sent back to class and instructed not to discuss the interview with the other children.

Preparation session. One or 2 days (AT = 1.49 days, SD = 0.50) prior to the cross-examination interview, half of the children

in each age group (5- and 6-year-olds, n = 38; 9- and 10-year-olds, n = 43) took part in an individual preparation session. In the same way as children would be prepared for court by an independent person (e.g., a victim advisor; Davies et al., 2004), the intervention

was conducted by an unfamiliar experimenter. The session began with the following statement:

Soon, a lady will be asking you some more questions about your visit

to the police station. So today we are going to have a practice at answering some questions. We are going to learn the best ways to answer questions, okay? I'm going to show you a video about a little

girl who gets lost. I want you to watch it really closely because I'm going to ask you some questions about it.

Children then watched a 4-min film about a little girl who gets lost and is eventually reunited with her babysitter by a police officer. This clip has been used successfully in prior memory research with children aged between 5 and 12 years (e.g., Suther- land & Hayne, 2001). At the end of the film, the interviewer asked

the child eight yes-no questions about the clip. Half of these questions related to events that had happened in the clip (true events; e.g., "Did the little girl get lost?"), whereas the other half

related to events that had not occurred (false events; e.g., "Did the policeman take the girl to McDonalds?"). The questions were designed to be easy for children to answer correctly.

After four of the eight questions, the interviewer asked cross-

examination style questions (e.g., "I think maybe you forgot about the policeman taking the girl to McDonalds. That's what really happened, isn't it?"). The reasons for disbelief used during the intervention were modeled on those used during the cross- examination interview.

If the child correctly answered a cross-examination question (e.g., "No, he didn't take her to McDonalds"), the experimenter praised him or her (e.g., "Well done! That's the right answer. The policeman didn't take the girl to McDonalds. It's good that you didn't agree with me because I had it muddled up. Good work!"). The experimenter then moved onto the next question. If the cross-

examination-style question was answered incorrectly, the experi- menter told the child that he or she had made a good attempt but that the answer was incorrect. The interviewer then showed the

child the part of the film that pertained to the question asked. The cross-examination-style question was then repeated. If the cross- examination-style question was answered correctly on the second attempt, the interviewer praised the child in the same way as described previously. If the child still answered- the question in- correctly, the interviewer gave him or her feedback on how to correctly answer the question (e.g., "Good try, but that's still not

quite the right answer. The policeman didn't take the girl to McDonalds. So, you should have said 'no' to my question. Just remember, you don't have to agree with adults when we get things muddled up, okay?"). The interviewer then moved onto the next question.

At the end of questions, the interviewer finished the session with

a warning very similar to that used in the pilot study. We added a directive for children to remember the practice-feedback session, based on research showing that this approach might assist children in transferring what they have learned in one context to another

(Ghatala, Levin, Pressley, & Goodwin, 1986; Pressley, Ross, Levin, & Ghatala, 1984). The warning stated,

Those are all the questions I have for you. You did a really good job! Soon, a lady is going to ask you some more questions about when you and your class went to the police station. When she's asking you questions, I want you to remember what we did today. Remember that that lady didn't go the police station, so she doesn't know what happened there. Remember that some of the questions she asks you might be a bit tricky. If she gets things muddled up, make sure you tell

her, like we talked about today. Can you remember all of those things?

Children who were not assigned to the preparation condition acted as control participants (5- and 6-year-olds, n = 39; 9- and 10-year-olds, n - 44). These children watched the video and answered the eight simple yes-no questions about it but did not receive cross-examination practice-feedback or the warning. This

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358 RIGHARTS, O'NEILL, AND ZAJAC

approach eliminated the possibility that any beneficial effect of the intervention was a consequence of watching the clip, having prac- tice with non-cross-examination questions, or interacting with an unfamiliar experimenter.

Coding

The coding procedure for the direct-examination and cross- examination interviews was identical to that used in past research of this kind (Zajac & Hayne, 2003, 2006; Zajac et al., 2009). During the direct-examination interview, children were awarded 2 points for each of the four questions that they answered correctly (minimum score = 0; maximum score = 8). After the cross- examination interview, points were added or deducted from this score based on whether or not children changed their direct- examination responses. If the child acquiesced to Question 9, 2 points were added (for correct acquiescence) or deducted (for incorrect acquiescence). If the child did not acquiesce to Question 9, but acquiesced to Question 10, 1 point was added or deducted. If there was no acquiescence, points were neither added nor deducted (see Appendix B for examples of 0-, 1-, and 2-point responses). Final scores ranged from 0 to 8.

In order to measure children's performance during the interven- tion session itself, we assigned separate scores for the simple yes-no questions and for the four practice cross-examination ques- tions. Children received 1 point for each correct answer to the eight simple yes- no questions. For each of the four practice cross- examination questions asked, a score of 0, 1, or 2 was assigned. Children received a 2 if they answered the question correctly on the first attempt, a score of 1 if they answered correctly on their second attempt, or a score of 0 if they answered incorrectly on their second attempt. Scores for each of the four questions were added to obtain a total score ranging between 0 and 8.

A second experimenter independently coded 25% of the direct- examination, cross-examination, and preparation interviews in each age group. Interobserver reliability scores were 100%, 97%, and 100%, respectively. Coding disagreements were resolved through discussion.

Results

Direct-Examination Interview

Overall, children were highly accurate when answering direct- examination questions (M = 7.24, SE = .09). Over half (57%) of younger children and 76% of older children achieved a direct- examination score of 8 out of 8. The lowest direct-examination

score for younger children was 4 (out of 8), achieved by 10% of the 5- and 6-year-olds. The lowest score for older children was 6 out of 8, which was achieved by the remaining 24% of 9- and 10-year-olds. Age differences were observed in direct-examination performance such that younger children (M = 6.94, SE = .16) were less accurate than older children (M = 7.52, SE = .09), F(l, 162) = 10.97, p = .001, d = .51, 95% CI [.34, .68]. Recall that the direct-examination interview occurred 1 to 5 days after the mem-

ory event. Given the negative effect of delay on the accuracy and completeness of children's recollections (e.g., Jones & Pipe, 2002; Pezdek & Roe, 1995), the analysis was rerun, this time with delay

period entered as a covariate. The main effect of age remained significant.

Next, we examined age differences in children's direct- examination accuracy as a consequence of the type of question asked (true event or false event). A 2 (question type: true, false) X 2 (age) ANOVA on these data revealed the expected main effect of age, F( 1, 162) = 11.99, p = .001, d = .63, 95% CI [.54, .71]. Regardless of age, however, children answered the false event questions (M = 3.82, SE = .05) more accurately than the true event questions (M = 3.41, SE = .08), F(l, 162) = 15.52, p = .0001, d = .47, 95% CI [.38, .57]. The Age X Question Type interaction was not significant, p = .72, i'ļ = .001. When chil- dren's responses to each true and false event were examined, there was no significant difference in the number of commission errors to false events (McNemar test, N - 164, exact p = .23). Ten (6.1%) children said that they got to try on handcuffs, and 5 (3%) children said that they saw a lady report her child's bike as stolen. There were, however, significant differences in the proportion of omission errors made for each of the true events (McNemar test,

N = 164, exact p = .002). Fourteen (8.5%) children said that they did not get their photo taken, and 34 children (20.7%) denied being spun around by a police officer. This difference could potentially be attributed to children being asked by the police officer not to tell

anyone that they were spun around by their shoulders.

Cross-Examination Interview

Did the number of changes that children made to their direct- examination responses during cross-examination differ as a func- tion of preparation condition and age? A 2 (preparation condition) X 2 (age) ANOVA revealed that older children (M = 1.25, SE = .13) made significantly fewer changes to their earlier reports than younger children (M = 2.75, SE = .16), F(l, 160) = 53.62, p < .0001, d = 1.03, 95% CI [.81, 1.25], and that children assigned to the preparation condition (M = 1 .30, SE = .17) made fewer changes than control children (M = 2.60, SE = .16), F(l, 160) = 39.65,/? < .0001, d = .87, 95% CI [.64, 1.10] (see Figure 1). Age and preparation condition did not interact to influence the number of changes made, p = .29, iļp = .007.

4 ■ Control □ Preparation

3.5 - </> T

■■■ o> o

- T - 1 - i

r- ■ ■ " I ^ o

5- and 6-year-olds 9- and 10-year-olds Age

Figure 1. The mean (+1 S£) number of changes that children made to their direct-examination responses during the cross-examination interview

as a function of age and preparation condition.

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NEGATIVE EFFECT OF CROSS-EXAMINATION 359

Given the variability in delay between the direct-examination and cross-examination interviews, an ANCOVA was carried out

controlling for this variable, but no changes in findings were observed.

The next step was to examine the response changes that children

made during cross-examination as a function of original response accuracy. A 2 (age) X 2 (preparation) ANOVA on the proportion of correct direct-examination responses that children changed dur- ing cross-examination revealed main effects of age and prepara- tion, but no Age X Preparation interaction, p = .36, Tļjļ = .005. Younger children (Af = .68, SE = .04) changed a greater propor- tion of their correct direct-examination responses than older chil- dren (Af = .33, SE = .04), F(l, 160) = 41.11,/? < .0001, d = .93, 95% CI [.87, .98]. Children in the control group (Af = .67, SE = .04) changed a greater proportion of correct direct-examination responses than children who received the preparation intervention (Af = .31, SE = .04), F( 1, 160) = 43.66, p < .0001, d = .95 95% CI [.90, 1.01]. An ANCOVA controlling for the delay from direct examination to cross-examination revealed a similar pattern of significant main effects and no significant interaction.

Children made few errors on direct-examination questions; therefore, power to detect differences due to preparation condition was low. Younger children (Af = .64, SE = .08) changed a greater proportion of originally incorrect direct-examination responses than older children (Af = .24, SE = .10), F( 1, 49) = 9.94, p = .003, d = .90, 95% CI [.78, 1.02]. Neither the main effect of preparation (control: M = .58, SE = .09; preparation: M = .39, SE = .09), p = .19, d = .40, 95% CI [.27, .53], nor the Age X Preparation interaction, p = .69, = .003, were significant. The main effect of age remained significant when delay from direct-to cross-examination interview was entered as a covariate.

To examine children's accuracy during the cross-examination interview as a function of preparation condition and age, accuracy scores were subjected to a 2 (preparation condition) X 2 (age) X 2 (interview phase: direct examination, cross-examination) ANOVA with repeated measures over interview phase. This anal- ysis revealed main effects of preparation condition, F(l, 160) = 22.44, p < .0001, d = .75, 95% CI [.57, .92]; age, F( 1, 160) = 67.73, p < .0001, d = 1.3, 95% CI [1.12, 1.47]; and interview phase, F(l, 160) = 188.50, p < .0001, d = 1.23, 95% CI [1.03, 1.43]. These main effects were qualified by two significant inter- actions, which are examined in turn.

First, interview phase and age interacted to influence accuracy, F(l, 160) = 25.99, p < .0001, Tļp = .14 (see Figure 2). As already reported, older children were more accurate than younger children in the direct-examination interview. Younger, i(76) = 10.26, p < .0001, d = 1.78, 95% CI [1.49, 2.07], and older, t( 86) = 7.21, p < .0001, d = .98, 95% CI = [.75, 1.21], children's accuracy decreased following cross-examination, regardless of preparation condition. In fact, young children's accuracy scores (Af = 3.69, SE = .25) were not significantly different from 50%, <76) = - 1.23, p = .22, d = .14, 95% CI [-.08, .36]. In contrast, older children's accuracy scores (Af = 6.02, SE = .21) were significantly higher than 50%, K 86) = 9.44, p < .0001, d = 1.01, 95% CI [.75, 1.27].

Interview phase and preparation condition also interacted to

influence children's accuracy, F(l, 160) = 27.90, p < .0001, Tļp = .15 (see Figure 3). Direct-examination interview performance did not differ between children in the control condition (Af = 7.28, SE = .13) and those who received the preparation intervention

■ 5- and 6-year-olds □ 9- and 1 0-year-oids 8 -

*7r 6 i - 1 - i

< 5

I ■ ^ ■ ■

Direct Examination Cross-Examination

Interview Phase

Figure 2. Children's mean (+1 SE) response accuracy as a function of interview phase and age.

(Af = 7.21, SE = .13), /(162) = .37, p = .71, d = .06, 95% CI [-.12, .24]. Following the cross-examination interview, accuracy decreased significantly for children in both the control condition (M = 4.06, SE = .24), r(82) = 12.86,/? < .0001, d = 1.86, 95% CI [1.60, 2.12], and the preparation condition (Af = 5.81, SE = .26), r(80) = 5.17, p < .0001, d = .77, 95% CI [.49, 1.05]. Children assigned to the preparation condition (Af = 5.81, SE = .26), however, obtained higher cross-examination accuracy scores than control children, r(162) = -5.01, p < .0001, d = .78, 95% CI [.44, 1.13]. In fact, children in the preparation condition ob- tained cross-examination accuracy scores that were significantly higher than chance (50%), i(80) = 7.08,/? < .0001, d = .79, 95% CI [.54, 1.03], whereas children in the control condition did not, K 82) = .25, p = .80, d = .03, 95% CI [-.19, .25].

Analyses were repeated with delay from direct examination to cross-examination entered as a covariate. No changes in findings were observed.

Preparation Performance

Recall that all children, regardless of group assignment, watched the preparation video and were asked simple yes-no questions about it. Inspection of children's performance on the eight prepa- ration questions across conditions found that most children scored

perfectly, with only seven of the younger children making errors (all scored 6 out of 8). Compared with older children, a higher proportion of younger children made errors, Fisher's exact test p = .004. Only five children in the control condition did not achieve perfect scores, compared with two in the preparation condition; this difference was not significant, Fisher's exact test p = .44. Given that over 2 times as many children in the control group made errors compared with the preparation condition, this may mean that control children had less ability going into the interven-

tion, but we lacked the power to test this. In an attempt to equate the groups on initial preparation performance, we randomly re- moved three control children who made errors and reran the

three-way Preparation Condition X Age X Interview Phase mixed ANOVA. The same pattern of findings emerged for all main effects and interactions. Of particular interest for this analysis was the significant main effect of preparation condition, F(l, 157) = 21.59,/? < .0001, d = .74, 95% CI [.57, .92].

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360 RIGHARTS, O'NEILL, AND ZAJAC

g . "Control □ Preparation

>*7 - i

5

4 ' HH 03 •)

2

ll' i ^ ^1 ^ 0 i

Direct Examination Cross-Examination

Interview Phase

Figure 3. Children's mean (+1 SE) response accuracy as a function of interview phase and preparation condition.

It is interesting to look at how much feedback children required before they disagreed with interviewer's suggestions. Recall that children in the preparation condition were assigned 0, 1, or 2 points for their response to each of the four practice cross- examination questions in the preparation session, depending on the amount of feedback required for an accurate response to be ob- tained. These four scores were summed to give a total preparation score ranging from 0 to 8. Preparation feedback scores for younger children (M = 5.45, SE = .35) were significantly lower than that for older children (M = 7.86, SE = .05), /(79) = -7.29, p < .0001, d = 1.62, 95% CI [1.12, 2.12]; that is, younger children required more feedback in order to disagree with the interviewer's incorrect suggestions.

Did these preparation scores predict children's subsequent cross-examination performance? When controlling for direct- examination accuracy, younger children's preparation scores were correlated with the number of changes made during cross- examination, r = -.63, p < .01, and with overall cross- examination accuracy, r - .53, p = .001. That is, for the younger children, better performance in the preparation session was asso- ciated with them making fewer changes and overall higher re- sponse accuracy during the cross-examination interview. There was little variability in the older children's performance on the preparation questions, so results for this group were predictably nonsignificant (ps = .42 and .79 for number of changes and overall accuracy, respectively).

Discussion

Given the well-documented difficulty that children can have maintaining accuracy in the face of developmentally inappropriate questions asked in forensic contexts, more and more researchers are turning their attention to ways in which this tendency might be

reduced. Simple instructions, such as reminders to tell the truth or not to guess, are generally not effective in improving the accuracy

of children's responses to suggestive questions (Beuscher & Roe- bers, 2005; Huffman et al., 1999). In contrast, more elaborate discussion of the ground rules of an interview, or practice and feedback approaches to complex questions, do seem to facilitate children's accuracy (e.g., Peters & Nunez, 1999; Saywitz et al., 1999). In the present study, we examined how these findings

translated to a particularly challenging form of suggestive ques- tioning: cross-examination questioning.

Consistent with the suggestibility literature, our pilot study showed that a simple verbal warning did not help children to negotiate cross-examination questioning. Given this finding, our main experiment looked at whether a comprehensive preparation package - including practice at cross-examination questions and feedback about response accuracy - would offer a more effective method of improving children's cross-examination performance.

Irrespective of age, children in the preparation condition made fewer changes overall during cross-examination and changed a smaller proportion of their correct direct-examination responses than control children. Although the preparation intervention did not eliminate the negative impact of cross-examination on chil- dren's accuracy, preparation significantly improved children's overall accuracy during the cross-examination interview.

This is the first study carried out to show that children's per- formance under cross-examination-style questioning can be im- proved. The positive effects of our intervention also provide some further support for the notion that children undergoing cross- examination change their reports despite intact memories for the event in question. Lampinen and Smith (1995) suggest that draw- ing a witness's attention to the possibility of an incorrect inter- viewer may work by increasing the likelihood that witnesses will detect discrepancies between their own recollection and incorrect suggestions, and/or it might affect the way in which these discrep- ancies are resolved once detected. Because the cross-examining interviewer in our paradigm overtly challenges the child's recol- lection, discrepancy detection is not a likely mechanism by which our intervention would succeed, but it is possible that such inter- ventions could influence children's decisions about how to resolve

those discrepancies. It appears, however, that merely drawing children's attention to

the possibility that the interviewer might be incorrect is insuffi- cient to improve cross-examination performance, as observed in our pilot study. Instead, it seems that practice and feedback is necessary for children's performance to be enhanced. Although speculative, it may be that the additional efficacy afforded by this strategy comes from helping children to consolidate the interven- tion information or by showing children that negative conse- quences will not arise from disagreeing with an interviewer. Given that the mechanism by which the practice and feedback prepara- tion helps children to contend with the cross-examiner's questions is unknown, this is an area for future research.

One additional positive aspect of our findings is that the intervention was effective for both 5- and 6-year-olds and 9- and 10-year-olds. Relative to younger children, however, older children obtained significantly higher direct-examination scores, made fewer changes to their original reports when cross-examined, and obtained significantly higher cross- examination accuracy scores. These age differences are highly consistent with previous cross-examination research (see Zajac & Hayne, 2006). Many skills that develop with age are likely to help children to accurately remember and report past events in response to forensic questions; for example, processing speed and capacity (Kail & Park, 1994), language skills (Bohannon & Stanowicz, 1988; Valian, 2006), theory of mind (Antonietti, Liverta-Sempio, Marchetti, & Astington, 2006; Eisbach, 2004), and the ability to learn new concepts (Schneider & Pressley,

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NEGATIVE EFFECT OF CROSS-EXAMINATION 361

1989). Other skills are likely to help older children to resist the social pressure that is commonplace during cross-examination. By the age of around 9 years, for example, children understand and appreciate that adults can be deceptive in conversation (Demorest, Meyer, Phelps, Gardner, & Winner, 1984). Any or all of these factors could have contributed to older children's

enhanced performance across both interviews.

Implications for Pretrial Intervention Approaches

Could an intervention similar to that used in the present research assist child witnesses in answering courtroom cross-examination questions accurately? On the one hand, our intervention has sev- eral legally attractive features. First, children are given practice at answering questions about a topic unrelated to their "testimony"; this aspect of the intervention is essential if allegations of coaching are to be avoided (Dezwirek-Sas, 1992). Second, our preparation intervention was successful despite being delivered by someone who was unfamiliar to the child. It is vital that any cross- examination preparation program for child witnesses can be suc- cessfully delivered by adults who are entirely independent of the investigative process. Third, because the intervention emphasized accuracy rather than resistance to change per se, it did not appear to make children less likely to correct their earlier mistakes. That

said, very few direct-examination responses were incorrect, and so statistical comparison of changes to correct and incorrect re- sponses was difficult to conduct. It may be that preparation has a negative effect on accuracy if the child's initial responses are highly inaccurate. This issue warrants further investigation, as it is critical to know that the preparation intervention does not "ce- ment" the errors of children who were lying or who were genu- inely mistaken in their direct examination - errors that may oth- erwise have been corrected during cross-examination. We are currently conducting research to address this issue.

Several other factors also require more comprehensive investi- gation to help us determine how well our intervention could translate to the real-world context. For example, our preparation session was carried out 1 to 2 days prior to cross-examination. In reality, however, court preparation could take place many days or even weeks before a trial. Given that children's memories are

particularly vulnerable to decay over time (Jones & Pipe, 2002; Ornstein, Gordon, & Larus, 1992; Pipe, Gee, Wilson, & Egerton, 1999), there is reason to hypothesize that preparation efficacy will decrease as the time interval between preparation and cross- examination increases.

We also developed our intervention with the luxury of knowing the precise questions that children would be asked during the cross-examination interview. Although the practice questions did not overlap entirely with the cross-examination questions, there was always some overlap. Because we can never predict, with any great certainty, the questions that children witnesses will be asked,

it is crucial that we further investigate children's ability to gener- alize from the intervention to the courtroom.

On a related note, our brief preparation session was explicitly tailored to the cross-examination interview. Recall that child wit-

nesses undergoing preparation for court might receive information

and/or instruction on many aspects of testifying, including famil- iarization with the court building and staff, and stress-reduction

techniques. Children might even meet with court preparation staff

on more than one occasion (e.g., Cunningham & Hurley, 2007; Morgan Libeau et al., 2003). It remains to be seen whether an intervention similar to ours could remain effective - or would

even show greater efficacy - when delivered as part of a larger, multicomponent program.

The questioning style and sequence employed in the present study also warrant some further exploration. Recall that the cross-examination interviewers in the present study were pro- fessional, but pleasant, when interacting with the children, and children were interviewed in a familiar setting. This is in contrast to real-life situations in which child witnesses are

interviewed in the courtroom by lawyers who may adopt a more aggressive questioning style; both of these factors appear to impair children's response accuracy (e.g., Imhoff & Baker- Ward, 1999; Nathanson & Saywitz, 2003). Alternatively, cross- examining lawyers may adopt a more subtle questioning style, by initially asking the child suggestive questions about innoc- uous topics to establish a yes-response bias before moving to forensically relevant subject matter (Myers, 1988). More gentle styles might also be employed to avoid alienating a jury (Davies et al., 1997). Further research is necessary to determine the effectiveness of the preparation intervention when children are cross-examined using questioning styles that differ from those used in the present study.

The sequence of events in the present study aligns with coun- tries that allow for prerecorded direct-examination testimony. Con- sequently, our findings may not generalize to countries in which such evidence is inadmissible, such as the United States. The key differences are the shorter latency to "direct examination" (be- cause this interview was videotaped within a few days of the event, rather than children waiting until trial to present their evidence) and the fact that children were shown the video footage of their direct-examination testimony prior to cross-examination. Both of these factors could have facilitated recall of the memory event, making cross-examination less powerful and therefore potentially exaggerating the success of the intervention. It is also of note that

the child may have inferred that the cross-examining interviewer supported the tape's content because she sat with the child while it was played, played the tape for the child, and told the child to "watch and listen very closely."

Given that our practice and feedback intervention, although effective, did not eliminate the negative effect of cross- examination on children's reports, it is crucial to consider ways in which further improvement might be achieved. We may, for example, need to expand the breadth and depth of the question practice for child witnesses, perhaps exposing them to a range of complex questions during the practice session or several practice sessions before trial. Like the present intervention, any intervention of this kind would have to be developed in close collaboration with members of the legal community, to ensure that it was considered acceptable for practice in real-world forensic settings.

Finally, despite our current focus on bottom-up approaches to facilitating children's accuracy in the courtroom, it is important to note that these approaches are likely to be even more suc- cessful when used alongside top-down approaches, in which we attempt to reduce lawyers' use of the types of questions that have been shown to promote inaccuracies in children's reports. Possible approaches of this type include prerecording children's

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362 RIGHARTS, O'NEILL, AND ZAJAC

direct-examination and cross-examination evidence around the

time an allegation is made, and training judges to recognize inappropriate questioning and respond appropriately. Alterna- tively, a number of jurisdictions are considering or implement- ing a system by which lawyers' questions are put through an intermediary , who either repeats questions verbatim or re- phrases them to be more developmentally appropriate (Hanna, Davies, Henderson, Crothers, & Rotherham, 2010). The likely effect of these approaches (either in isolation or in conjunction with bottom-up approaches) on both accurate and inaccurate testimony is yet to be comprehensively empirically investi- gated.

Final Remarks

Our findings add to a growing body of research highlighting serious concerns about the suitability of the cross-examination process for young witnesses, and confirm that the components of pretrial preparation programs for child witnesses deserve very careful consideration. Given that court preparation programs for children are often limited to familiarization and basic instruction

(e.g., Davies et al., 2004; Dezwirek-Sas, 1992; Hanna et al., 2010; Plotnikoff & Woolfson, 2007), it is likely that many of these programs fail to adequately address this issue of cross- examination. In the absence of substantial and meaningful reform to the way in which child witnesses testify in adversarial trials, research must continue to explore ways to better prepare children for this process.

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Appendix A

Four Sets of Sample Cross-Examination Questions

Target Activity 1 (Photo) Initially Inaccurate Child Target Activity 3 (Bike) Initially Accurate Child

1. In the video, you said that you didn't get your photo 1. You said in the video that you didn't see a lady come in taken, didn't you? about her child's bike, didn't you?

2. Can you tell me why you think that? 2. Can you tell me how you know that?

3. You got your fingerprints taken, didn't you? 3. You saw where she could have come in though, didn't you?

4. Can you remember what you did straight after that? 4. Was it right at the start?

5. You lined up at some point, didn't you? 5. Had you been to the police station before?

6. Did you do maths yesterday at school? 6. Can you tell me what you've been doing at school this morning?

7. Did you like going to the police station? 7. The police station was really big wasn't it?

8. Are you sure you didn't get your photo taken? 8. Are you sure you didn't see a lady come in about her child's

9. I think maybe you just forgot about getting your photo bike? taken. That's what happened, isn't it?

9. I think maybe you did see her, but you can't quite remember

10. That might be what happened though, don't you think? it That's what happened isn't it?

10. But that might be the case though, don't you think? Target Activity 2 (Handcuffs) Initially Inaccurate

Child Target Activity 4 (Spinning) Initially Accurate Child

1. You said on the video that you got to try on handcuffs, 1. You said in the video that the policeman spun you didn't you? around, didn't you?

2. Who was there when that happened? 2. How do you know that?

3. The handcuffs would have been pretty heavy, were they? 3. Was everyone else there?

4. Did you have them on for a long time or a short time? 4. Tell me a bit about what happened when he spun you around

5. Did they feel funny? 5. Did you get your fingerprints taken at the police station?

6. Did someone drive you to school this morning? 6. And where did the policeman spin you around?

7. And the policeman put them on you? 7. Where was everyone standing?

8. Are you sure you got to try on handcuffs? 8. And are you sure the policeman spun you around?

9. I think maybe your friends got to try on handcuffs, but you 9. If your teacher told me that it didn't happen, she would be didn't That's what really happened isn't it? right about that, wouldn't she?

10. That might have happened though, mightn't it? 10. But she might be right about that, mightn't she?

{Appendices continue)

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NEGATIVE EFFECT OF CROSS-EXAMINATION 365

Appendix B

Examples of 0-, 1-, and 2-Point Cross-Examination Interview Responses

0-Point Response (Child Does Not Acquiesce to Child: No response.

Suggestion) Interviewer: But that might be what happened though, don't you Interviewer: Are you sure that the policeman spun you around? think?

Child: Yes. Child: 1 doiťt

Interviewer: I think maybe you didn't get spun around. I think someone told you to say that. That's what really happened isn't it? 2-Point Response (Child Acquiesces With Suggestion)

Child: No. Interviewer: Are you sure that you got your photo taken?

Interviewer: That might be the case though, mightn't it? Child: Yes.

Child: No. Interviewer: If your teacher told me that it didn't happen, she would be right about that wouldn't she?

1-Point Response (Child Admits That Suggestion Is Possible) Chüd: Yes-

Interviewer: Are you sure you didn't get to try on handcuffs?

Child. Yes. Received September 8, 2011 Interviewer: I think maybe you just forgot about getting to try on the Revision received April 18, 2013 handcuffs. That's what happened, isn't it? Accepted April 21, 2013 ■

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