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Article
Comparisons of Three Different Investigative Interview Techniques With Young Children
Psychology Faculty Research
  • Marc A Lindberg, Ph.D., Marshall University
  • Mary Tantalo Chapman
  • David Samsock
  • Stuart W. Thomas
  • Anders W. Lindberg
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2003
Abstract

After viewing a film of a mother hitting her son, a film not seen by the college student interviewers, children were misinformed about a detail (via exposure to a misleadingquestion) as well as explicitly coached to disclose 3 false details. The children were then interviewed by interviewers who had previously learned 1 of 3 different interviewing procedures: the Yuille Step-Wise Interview developed by J. C. Yuille, R. Hunter,R. Joffe, & J. Zaparniuk (1993); a doll play interview developed by Action for Child Protection Inc. (1994); or the Modified Structured Interview developed for this study. The Modified Structured Interview yielded more “where” information and was better at detecting if coaching had occurred. However, the interviewers were not very good at discriminating suggested versus coached versus correct witnessed information. The authors found that the deeper one digs for memories, the more one uncovers incorrect versus correct items. They concluded that although the Modified Structured Interview was superior tothe techniques currently in use, cautions are necessary.

Comments

This is an electronic version of an article published in Marc A. Lindberg, Mary Tantalo Chapman, David Samsock, Stuart W. Thomas & Anders W. Lindberg (2003): Comparisons of Three Different Investigative Interview Techniques With Young Children, The Journal of Genetic Psychology: Research and Theory on Human Development, 164:1, 5-28. The Journal of Genetic Psychology: Research and Theory on Human Development is available online at: http://www.informaworld.com with the open URL of http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00221320309597500

Citation Information
Marc A. Lindberg, Mary Tantalo Chapman, David Samsock, Stuart W. Thomas & Anders W. Lindberg (2003): Comparisons of Three Different Investigative Interview Techniques With Young Children, The Journal of Genetic Psychology: Research and Theory on Human Development, 164:1, 5-28