Childhood Sexual Abuse: A Longitudinal Study of Disclosures and Denials.

In legal cases regarding child sexual abuse (CSA), children have various options, such as to disclose or deny maltreatment. When interviewed in adulthood, their accounts may be consistent with their childhood responses. Alternatively, denial in childhood could be followed in adulthood by disclosure ("deferred disclosure"), confirming previous suspicions.

Comparing witness performance in the field versus the lab: How real-world conditions affect eyewitness decision-making.

Objective: This field-simulation experiment was designed to compare eyewitness performance when conducting show ups and lineups under field versus laboratory conditions.

Hypotheses: We expected to replicate the findings from previous field-simulation experiments showing overconfidence in show up identifications made under field but not lab conditions, and further predicted that under field conditions, high-confidence identifications are more likely to be correct when using lineups compared with show ups. It was also expected that field conditions would lead witnesses to lower their criterion for choosing with show ups, but we did not know how field conditions would affect lineup decision-making.

Memory Accuracy After 20 Years for Interviews About Child Maltreatment.

When adults allege childhood victimization, their long-term memory comes under scrutiny. This scrutiny can extend to the adults' memory of childhood interviews. The concerns raise important theoretical and applied issues regarding memory for long-past discussions of child maltreatment and trauma.

Disclosures of Sexual and Physical Abuse across Repeated Interviews.

This study examined the recorded interviews of 132 children between 3 and 16-years of age who were involved in a forensic investigation evaluating allegations of sexual and/or physical abuse. As part of this investigation, two interviews were conducted over a 5-day period. The interviews were analyzed to examine how frequently these children disclosed substantiated allegations of abuse when asked directly about these experiences in one or both interviews.

Does anyone else look familiar? Influencing identification decisions by asking witnesses to re-examine the lineup.

Two experiments were conducted to see if asking witnesses to take another look at the lineup after they voiced their identification decisions would alter their choices, and if confirming feedback could then be used to solidify the selections they shifted to. Participants watched a simulated crime and were asked to identify the culprit from a photographic lineup. After voicing their identification decisions, participants were prompted to re-examine the lineup.

Event memory and suggestibility in abused and neglected children: trauma-related psychopathology and cognitive functioning.

This study examined event memory and suggestibility in 3- to 16-year-olds involved in forensic investigations of child maltreatment. A total of 322 children were interviewed about a play activity with an unfamiliar adult. Comprehensive measures of individual differences in trauma-related psychopathology and cognitive functioning were administered.

Children's expressed emotions when disclosing maltreatment.

Objective: Our goal was to examine children's expressed emotions when they disclose maltreatment. Little scientific research exists on this topic, and yet children's emotional expressions at disclosure may inform psychological theory and play a crucial role in legal determinations.

Method: One hundred and twenty-four videotaped forensic interviews were coded for children's emotional displays.

The effect of question format on resistance to misleading postevent information and self-reports of events occurring during hypnosis.

Participants were administered a standard tape-recorded version of the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility, Form A (HGSHS:A) and then a modified version of the HGSHS:A response booklet that asked each participant to report which suggested behaviors they performed during the procedures. These response booklets were altered to include 3 additional suggestions not offered during the hypnotic procedures. Half the participants were administered the questions in the response booklet in the standard format ("I performed the suggested behavior" versus "I did not perform the suggested behavior").

Patterns of cohesion in the families of offspring of addicted parents: examining a nonclinical sample of college students.

This study was designed to examine patterns of family functioning among college students who are offspring of addicted parents. 218 undergraduate psychology students were administered a series of measures assessing family functioning, dissociation, parental addiction, and a history of child abuse. As predicted, offspring of addicted parents reported significantly lower Cohesion in their families of origin (F1,161 = 10.

Maltreated children's memory: accuracy, suggestibility, and psychopathology.

Memory, suggestibility, stress arousal, and trauma-related psychopathology were examined in 328 3- to 16-year-olds involved in forensic investigations of abuse and neglect. Children's memory and suggestibility were assessed for a medical examination and venipuncture. Being older and scoring higher in cognitive functioning were related to fewer inaccuracies.

Memory and suggestibility in maltreated children: age, stress arousal, dissociation, and psychopathology.

The present study was designed to assess children's memory and suggestibility in the context of ongoing child maltreatment investigations. One hundred eighty-nine 3-17-year-olds involved in evaluations of alleged maltreatment were interviewed with specific and misleading questions about an anogenital examination and clinical assessment. For the anogenital examination, children's stress arousal was indexed both behaviorally and physiologically.

Consistency in children's reports of sexual and physical abuse.

Objective: The goal of the present study was to investigate the consistency of children's reports of sexual and physical abuse.

Method: A group of 222 children, ages 3-16 years, participated. As part of legal investigations, the children were interviewed twice about their alleged experiences of abuse.