Based on the evidence reviewed so far, it is clear that recalling a past event may be influenced by a variety of external and internal factors (see Figure 2). External factors may involve the type of the event, the time the interview takes place relative to that event (Howe, 1997; Salmon & Pipe, 1997, 2000), interviewers’ questions (Ceci & Bruck, 1993; Haist et al., 1992; Poole & Lindsay, 1995), and the use of nonverbal interview methods, such as drawing and dramatization during the interview (Salmon, 2001). Internal factors include age differences, language and symbolic ability, emotional factors, and temperamental differences, which may affect children’s willingness to talk in an interview and/or their desire to gain the
reporting. As an example, a child may have memory of a past event but refuse to recount the event due to shyness. Consequently, it is worthwhile to investigate how these internal and external supports interrelate and facilitate children’s reports. INTERNAL FACTORS
EXTERNAL FACTORS
Figure 2. A schematic representation of the factors that may influence recall of a past event.
As previous work has repeatedly shown, preschool children may have difficulty retrieving information from memory and may require external scaffolding methods to facilitate this process (Butler et al., 1995; Jolley, 2010; Wesson & Salmon, 2001). In accordance with the theory of memory outlined by Tulving and colleagues (Nadel, 1994; Schacter, 1996; Schacter & Tulving, 1994; Tulving, 2002), drawing and dramatization may allow children to mentally travel back to the time they experienced a specific incident, mentally reinstate it, and recall details about it. In this sense, these two methods may act as cues which facilitate the retrieval stage. As can be seen in Figure 2, children’s scripted knowledge may also affect recall (Bartlett, 1932; Nelson & Gruendel, 1981; Roberts & Blades, 2000; Schank & Abelson, 1977). In this thesis,
Age Scripts Language skills Temperament Symbolic skills Language skills Mood Memory Verbal recall Encoding Retrieval Event Delay Drawing Dramatization Types of questions Drawing, Dramatization
this issue is approached in a novel manner: the content of children’s drawings,
particularly the inclusion of salient (central) vs more script-related (peripheral) details, and how these change over three different time delays is explored. This will show us whether children communicate information in their drawings which has forensic value, thus rendering drawings supplementary aids in eyewitness testimony cases. It will also inform us about the effects of retention intervals in children’s memories, which can range from months to years in legal contexts, and may also reinforce one’s tendency to rely on scripts (Myles-Worsley et al., 1986; Slackman & Nelson, 1984). Further, when children are asked to draw and talk about an event, not only do they retrieve information from their memory, but they may also recode the event anew (Tulving, 1984). Exploring this will inform us whether drawings themselves act as memory cues for a past event, and also whether they facilitate the process of recoding the event.
As shown on Figure 2, external factors are not the only ones which may have an effect on children’s recall; different interview methods may interact with children’s internal characteristics when they are asked to report what they remember about an incident. Children with better verbal skills may be able to offer more detailed reports in a verbal-only interview than children with lower verbal abilities. Children with better symbolic abilities may benefit more from drawing or the use of gestures and movements to recount a past event than children with less advanced symbolic skills. By contrast to more sociable children, children with a shyer and more emotional temperament may find it difficult to talk to a novel interviewer, not because they do not recall details about a past event, but because they are timid of the novel situation they find themselves in. If children feel stressed and unhappy during the interview, they may not want to co-operate.
These data suggest that children’s individual differences and cognitive abilities may interact with different interview methods and can affect their reports. Such
internal characteristics may weight differently during an interview. As an example, a very sociable child may have limited verbal skills and therefore benefit more from a drawing interview than a verbal-only interview. A very shy child may have excellent verbal skills and still refuse to talk due to inhibition. Although this last issue is not tested directly within this thesis, it may be important to bear in mind in interviews with children. It suggests that investigators may be able to harness the available external supports and children’s internal supports during interviews to facilitate children’s recall. Investigating these combinations will allow us to adjust the interview process to the needs of each eyewitness and facilitate the retrieval stage.
The memory theories and models which have so far been outlined in this chapter pose a crucial limitation; they do not take into account the individual characteristics of each child, such as their temperamental traits and mood, when recalling a past event. Each child is different, and their ability to report events as well as tolerate the interview process may be affected by their individual differences, such as their personality. Accordingly, the aforementioned empirical research, which is premised upon these theories, and which focuses primarily on external factors, might be insufficient to explain a child’s eyewitness testimony without considering internal factors. Therefore, the primary objective of this thesis is to explore the combination of external factors (i.e. a drawing and a dramatization interview) and internal factors (i.e. temperament, mood, language skills and symbolic play ability) in children’s